Finding Sanity Undercover
by WarriorsSword6
Summary: This is set in the marauder era. It follows the life of Becca Burns, a student at Hogwarts, but begins in the second half of her final year there. After graduating she is pushed into a life of secrecy and espianage where among the madness she finds sanity
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 –

New Beginnings

Life has never been easy for me. Growing up I was always told to try harder, that I could be better, that I wasn't trying to "reach my full potential". When I was younger I either didn't know what they were talking about or I would figure it out and find myself feeling…. completely inadequate. As I've grown older I've learned to completely ignore their remarks of "not good enough" and pretend their looks of disappointment were for someone else.

It wasn't that my parents didn't love me; it's that they just expected so much more from me, more than I was willing or able to give. If I did learn one thing growing up with them, it was that sometimes everyone is right and no one is wrong. My parent's intentions and hopes for me were good; they just wanted me to be the best person I could be. My own thoughts on the future were less… fixed, less permanent, but they were what I thought, what I knew was best for me at the time.

Because of my parents I was forced to see things from other people's perspectives. That cliché phrase "walk a mile in someone else's shoes" actually makes sense to me. Sometimes it strikes me as odd that more people don't try to open their minds to other people's points of view like I do, but then most people would rather only see things for face value. They'd rather judge the book by its cover and live their blissful ignorant lives than try to find out more, look at the layers in things, or simply open the book and begin to read.

Of course, growing up as I did I had a lot of opportunities to utilize my skills of seeing from another persons eyes. Not just in my immediate family, but with my cousins and aunts and uncles too. I am part of a very large family, and a very hypocritical one as far as I'm concerned.

But when I started school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry I faced a whole new kind of discrimination. I had thought I'd experienced a lot in my life, but it turns out I hadn't the first clue about how hard life could be.

There were several reasons why I wasn't immediately accepted at Hogwarts. To begin with I started going there later than everyone else. Just before my sixth year of school my mother and father, out of nowhere, decided we were moving. And to England of all places, an entire ocean away from all that I knew and loved. Then I found out that not only was I going to a new place, I'd have a new schooling experience as well. Back in the states I had been home schooled by my mother, now I was going to a real school with other students. Not only was it a real school, it was a boarding school so I would be away from the only people I actually knew in all of Europe for the majority of the year.

But I took this all in stride. I accepted it. I did the whole meditation Zen thing and calmly packed my bags and allowed myself to be shipped off to the middle of Merlin knows where for school where I was completely ignored my entire first year. The students didn't know I existed, the faculty didn't bother with me because I was better than most students, but in a quiet way. I didn't make waves, I don't like to plow my way through life without examining my own and seeing how it affects the people around me. So instead of trying to make friends and bond with people, I kept to myself and tried not to screw up their lives.

Then I met this guy over the Christmas break. I was on vacation with my parents, we were visiting back home and one of my cousins had talked me into supervising an outing with her and some of her friends. The adults all trusted me, so as soon as I agreed to go along they stopped worrying about us and what we might get up to because I would supposedly keep them all in line. Needless to say I didn't. We ended up at an 18 and over bar, all seven of us in our hoochie outfits with our fake I.D.'s made it inside. And once they had left me to baby-sit their purses while they went and danced I happened to meet Josh.

Josh was a waiter at the bar who just happened to get off work and bump into me on my way back from the restroom. Our conversation led from one thing to another and before I knew it he was buying me drinks and I was spilling my guts out about how my life sucked. I never saw Josh after that night, but he did give me some great advice.

"Don't live your life for someone else in someone else's way trying not to mess up someone else's plans. Live your life like you want to, do things you want to do, and the next time you see a guy you like go for it, even if everyone and everything, including yourself, tells you he's out of your league. Life takes chances, takes risks, you've got to put in your full effort to be yourself and make yourself happy instead of letting people walk all over you and living your life around them."

And he was right. From that point on I decided to take a stand, to stop being the quiet girl that none of the students actually knew and the teachers didn't really notice.

So here I am, 17 years old, boarding the Hogwarts Express for the third and likely the final time and I am possessed to do something I haven't done since I started at Hogwarts: speak my mind. Or more specifically at the moment, yell at people.

"Move it! One side! Gang way! Coming through people!" I yelled as I shoved my way through the huge crowd in the walkway. First year students were huddled in their compartments, second years were trying not to get run over by my overlarge trunk as I floated it through the air in front of me and everyone else was yelling at me for being rude. Well forget them. Talk about rude they hadn't even had the decency all of last year to say "Hi I'm Bob, nice to meet you. How's your day been?" So I ignored their comments and made my way to the back of the train.

At the beginning of the year I had sat alone in an otherwise empty compartment at the very end of the train. This term I was going to sit in the very same compartment. First term it had been quiet at the end of the train and I was hoping on it being so once again so that I could take the opportunity to read and relax and nap for a while before we got to Hogwarts and I forced myself to be bold and stop hiding behind a façade of an innocent well behaved loner.

When I arrived the compartment was empty and the general area of the train was quiet, so I sighed thankfully and floated my trunk to the rack above the seats, pulled out my book and began to read. Sadly I didn't count on one thing: the people in the compartment next to me being extremely noisy. I ignored them for as long as I could, but then finally got fed up with them and, instead of swallowing my anger like I would have this time last year, I stood, book in hand, and marched over to the noisy compartment and knocked somewhat violently on the glass and wood door. Of course, I also didn't count on the hottest guy in school answering the door to the compartment.

"Yes? Can I help you… um…?" Sirius Black asked questioningly. He obviously recognized me but didn't know my name. I felt the anger boil over inside, but tried not to let it show through my fake smile and happy voice.

"The name's Anabell Burns, you can call me Becca after my middle name Rebecca."

"Um… okay… Can I help you with anything Becca?"

"Yes. You see you all are really loud, unnecessarily loud. While I understand that you're having a good time reliving old memories and deciding new ways to torture Slytherines and younger students, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it down to a dull roar." I smiled brightly as I finished my little speech.

"Um… excuse me? Do you even know who I am?"

"Duh. Sirius Black," I pointed to Sirius with his medium length black hair and grey-blue eyes, " James potter," the kid with the messy jet black hair and hazel eyes wearing a captain's pin for quidditch and a Head boy badge to boot, " Lily Evans," the young redhead was eyeing me with her vivid green irises like a child who had said she was going to jump off the roof and fly, " Remus Lupin," his brown haired, deep brown eyed head popped out from behind a book and blinked owlishly at me, the stranger who had said his name, " Peter Pettigrew," now I pointed to the little blonde kid with the watery eyes who looked like he was about to wet his pants just because I happened to know his name and seemed a tad angry, " Jill Black," she smirked at me and focused her brown eyes on me while brushing a stray strand of her long black hair behind her shoulder, " and Belinda Hopkins." she looked a little uncomfortable with the situation and kept glancing from me to Sirius, who seemed to be becoming agitated with my presence, then she would look at Remus to see if her was going to do anything, then finally settle back down in her seat and fiddle with her short brown hair, still watching with her blue eyes. "You're the most popular people in school, the Gods of the Gryffindor House, and an all together pain in my side at the moment. Now if you don't mind, quiet down or cast a silencing spell. Goodbye."

"Excuse me, but what give you the right to talk to us like that? You don't even know us! You've never even talked to any of us before!" Sirius exclaimed angrily as I walked back to my compartment. He shouldn't have said anything. I hadn't really lost my temper up till then. But now that he'd brought it up I'd just have to correct him on a few things now wouldn't I?

"Well that could be because you're all to self involved to even notice that I existed. You four, the Marauders, too busy trying to date all the hot chicks at school and pull pranks on unsuspecting underclassmen, making jokes and causing trouble for everyone to notice a new class member last year. In all of your classes by the way, I was, and still am, in iall/i of your classes. And you three, Lily, Jill and Bindi, nicest sweetest girls around, kind to everyone who's not on your bad side, I sleep in the same dorm as you and you've never once said hi. I'm in the same grade as all of you, in most for the same classes and none of you, not one of you, have ever so much as introduced yourselves. No one has in fact. So do me a favor and shut the he11 up before I lose all of my self control." I had somehow managed to "get all up in his space" as my friend Candace from back in the states would say. I was inches from his face, glaring intensely and trying not to beat him over the head with my rather large hardback book. Instead of hitting him I did the next best thing, I whipped my head around really fast and swatted him in the face with my long red-blonde hair as I turned and stalked back into my compartment leaving him and his friends too awestruck to say anything.

I slammed the door shut on my compartment and resettled myself with my book and began reading again. They didn't make anymore noise the rest of the train ride and I managed to read and nap peacefully until we pulled to a slow stop in Hogsmeade, the village just outside of the Hogwarts grounds. I pulled my trunk off the train and stashed it with the others before jumping into an empty carriage led by seemingly invisible horses which were really magical creatures called Thestrals. Thestrals can only be seen by someone who has witnessed the death of another person. I could see them due to an unfortunate experience as a child that I'd rather not think, talk, or hear about ever again.

When the carriage stopped I jumped out and walked purposefully into the school and straight into the Great Hall where I sat at the end closest to the teachers and read my book while I waited for the other students to finish filing in and finding their seats.

I waited patiently, looking around the huge room trying to find more people to reveal my presence to in about the same way I had the Marauders and their female cohorts. Having picked a few more Gryffindors, a couple of Ravenclaws, about a dozen Slytherines, and one incredibly annoying Hufflepuff I looked to the long table just ten feet from me where Dumbledore had stood to make his usual back-from-break speech involving a lot of well wishing for us and our families and hopes that we'll remember the rules and try to do well in class. I glanced down the table and saw that Sirius, James and Jill were chattering quietly while Lily gave them the Steak Eye, Peter shushed them nervously and Bindi and Remus rolled their eyes and ignored their antics. They didn't seem to be too bothered any more about my having told them off a couple of hours ago, but then they probably figured I was just some nut off her rocker and on a bender.

"-please remember to thank Professor McGonagall for providing the proper reasoning as to why I should extend your vacation an extra couple of days this year. Now, dig in!" and with that food appeared on the table. I piled some potatoes, green beans, and wild rice on my plate and, after pulling my book out from under the table and opening it to the correct page, began eating at a slow but steady pace while I continued my reading.

Around me everyone was conversing and socializing with their friends and having a general good time of it. I didn't have any friends, and I don't particularly find the idea of making new friends while trying to eat an easy exercise. So instead I simply concentrated on my book and my food until Dumbledore stood again and suggested we all retire to our beds so we wouldn't be too tired for the next day's classes.

With a scraping of chair legs everyone, including myself, stood and made their way out of the Great Hall and to our dorms. I somehow ended up behind a group of giggling first years and managed to restrain myself before lashing out at them and telling them to grow up. I rubbed my forehead in irritation, the rolled my head around on my neck to try and relieve some of the tension beginning to build at the base of my neck. Just then I caught a flash of something in the corner of my eye. A flash of bright blue…

I looked behind me and realized that the bright blue I had seen was Sirius's shirtsleeve and that he was glaring at me while his friends gave me strange looks of guilt mixed with anger and self-loathing. All except Peter, who just looked down right terrified.

"I don't bite you know." I said to him with a raised eyebrow. "And honestly I don't usually explode on people like that," I said to the rest of them "but I'm not going to apologize for what I said, because I meant every bit of it." I turned back around and walked forward instead of backward so that I wouldn't run over the little firsties on accident, not that it would be such a bad thing.

As soon as I arrived back at the Tower I ran up to my dorm and pulled a new book out of my trunk, seeing as I had finished the other one during dinner, then headed back down and sat in a little window seat where I usually spent my spare time reading and drawing.

I read until I was the only person left in the Commons. I was around 2 a.m. when I crept up the stairs, down the hall, across the dorm room, and slipped under my soft warm sheets and quilts. I fell asleep instantly, my head barely touching the pillow before unconsciousness set in.

The next morning found me wide awake and sitting in the same window sill reading at around 6:30a.m. I get up early out of habit. When I'm at home my mother is always up at around 6:30 and vacuuming the kitchen floor. Because the kitchen is right above my room I hear everything that goes on in it, and our vacuum is extremely noisy, so I use it like an alarm clock most days. I'm also a night owl, so I end up going to sleep really late, normally around midnight, but later if, like last night, I'm caught up in a book. I've learned to be quiet as a mouse, creeping around my house in the middle of the night on my way to bed so as not to wake my parents and have to put up with them giving me looks of annoyance and irritation for being up so late.

By 7:30 most of the students in Gryffindor Tower were up and out of their beds if not fully awake or dressed. One poor third year managed to walk down to the common room still in his p.j.'s and half asleep, then tumble over onto one of the comfy couches and fall back into slumber again.

It was about this time that Lily, Jill and Bindi walked down the steps from the girl's dorm, deep in conversation. They stopped at the foot of the stairs and seemed to decide on something. I had been half watching them and half reading when they came down, and when Lily looked around the Commons and fixed her eyes on me, I concentrated fully on my book.

I wasn't afraid of her, I was afraid she'd make a scene. I don't like to cause scenes in public places if I don't have to, and if she came over and started yelling at me about the night before on the train and on the way to the Tower, it was going to make it a lot harder to find friends here. For these reasons I kept my eyes on the page I was attempting to read in vain and hoped she would suddenly veer off in another direction or think better of confronting me here and go on down to breakfast.

But, of course, that would have been asking for too much now wouldn't it? Lily walked right up to me and tapped me on the shoulder with a smile on her face.

"Halloo." I said, lowering my book and looking over at her with a small smile and what I hoped was an open and inviting expression. The less confrontational I was the less likely she was to be able to be mean to me. I'd studied her and her friends last year and noticed that Lily wasn't someone who got angry unless she had a reason to be. I also learned that she is a control freak and a book worm in the studious sense of the term, both good qualities in a student, but things she could use some work on in her social life. She is trying though, I mean, she finally let go enough to give James a chance now didn't she? And that's getting along rather well from what I've seen.

"Morning." Lily said with an equally polite smile. "We were wondering if by some chance you'd like to come to breakfast with us." At this my eyes just about popped out of my skull. I'd expected a thorough thrashing for my actions the previous day; instead I receive an invite to eat with them? To say the least I was a little thrown.

"Um… what?" I asked blinking blankly at her like a fish string stupidly out of it's fishbowl at a small child.

"Well, I mean, we understand if you don't want to." Lily started babbling nervously "We basically ignored you all last year and first term this year, and we're sorry for that. I mean, we never even said hi to you, and that's just outright rude. I mean, we didn't do it on purpose; we were all just so busy with… well, with important things that we never really thought twice about it. I mean, if we had bumped into you in the dorm room we would have I know, but we didn't even see you around much. The first few weeks we thought someone's things had gotten put in the wrong dorm or that you were sick in the infirmary and figured we'd meet you when you got well, and then after a while we just sort of forgot about it. Anyways we're really sorry we didn't say hi or introduce ourselves and we hope you'll forgive us and come to breakfast with us." Lily stopped babbling and looked at me, waiting for some sign of approval or disproval. At first I thought she must be pranking me, but then I noticed she was twisting her hands around, gripping and re-gripping them in different positions, something she only does when she's truly worried or nervous about something. I know this because I spent all of last year studying the people in the commons, in particular Lily and her friends and the Marauders because they just always seemed to be the most interesting subjects. I actually had quite a few drawings of them; Lily studying, Remus reading, Peter twitching in his seat, Jill and Bindi talking excitedly, James and Sirius plotting their newest prank or late night adventure. They all made such interesting subjects that they ended up being some of my favorite models for practicing drawing people.

"Um… well…" I blinked again and tried to force my brain into gear to sum up the words I had jumbling just in front of my mouth into a proper sentence. "I, uh, I guess that'd be fine, um, I guess…" I replied, still a little uncertain.

Lily brightened at my reply. "Really? Good! Come on, we're going down now." I marked my place in my book and stood from the window seat. Lily took my arm and placed it in hers, and we began walking to the Great Hall. Jill and Bindi were on my left, Lily holding my arm on the right. I felt like something between a celebrity being escorted from her car by her body guards to a prisoner being escorted to the gallows by the jail guards.

The three of them engaged me in polite conversation until we reached the Great Hall where they led me to an empty spot at the huge table. We all sat down and began eating bits of toast and eggs and sausage. They started talking about their breaks and what they had done, how much fun it had been, and the hot guys they had seen. When it came my turn to speak up about my vacation I just shrugged and said "It was okay. I went back to the States and visited my relatives. Saw a couple of my friends while I was there."

"Did you meet any hot guys?" Jill prompted.

"Erm… yes… I met this one guy in a bar…"

"Yeah?" Bindi urged me on.

"Um, he was nice. We chatted for a bit and then he gave me some advice and left."

"Oh." Jill looked a little disappointed.

"What advice did he give you?"

"He told me to stop living my life according to other people's plans and to force people to live their lives around mine for once."

"He gives good advice." Jill commented.

"I thought so too." I nodded, taking another bite of my scrambled eggs.

"So, what classes are you taking?" Bindi asked.

"The same ones as James and Sirius, plus Runes and Care of Magical Creatures." I replied, looking to see if Lily would take the bait.

"So that means you've got N.E.W.T. Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defense, and Divination plus Career Counseling this term." Lily counted each class off on a finger. She had James's schedule memorized too I bet. "You've got charms then first I take it?" I knew it!

"Yup, Charms, then Transfiguration, lunch, and double Defense." I said, managing to get away with only smirking at her instead of laughing loudly like I wanted to.

"Fun. You want to be an Auror as well then?" Jill asked.

"Yeah, either that or work with magical creatures, dragons preferably."

"Why on earth would you want to do that? Those things are vicious." Bindi pointed out.

"I don't know I like them I guess. The dragons and I have a certain understanding. I respect their personal space and need for freedom and respect, they don't torch me first chance they get. Besides, you have to admit they have certain elegance to them."

"She's insane." Bindi said.

"We're talking to a crazy lady." Jill added.

"Actually she reminds me a bit of you Jill." Lily quirked an eyebrow at Jill in amusement.

"What do you mean?"

"She just has some of the qualities you do is all."

"Yeah but how's that?"

"How's what?" James asked, leaning down and kissing Lily lightly on the lips before sitting down next to her and reaching for the biscuits.

"What's she doing here? Overreacting for no reason? Yelling at innocent bystanders? Ripping your heads off and eating them for breakfast?" Sirius asked, giving me a small glare.

"Well, I was thinking about kabobbing their heads for breakfast, but then I thought 'Hey, I'll just have eggs and toast today instead.' Besides, their heads wouldn't be very tasty, too much watery brain and hard skull. Now their arms on the other hand…" I trailed off, putting my last bite of eggs into my mouth and pushing my plate into the middle of the table where it disappeared to Merlin knows where. I pulled my book out of my bag while I chewed and opened it on the table in front of me. I looked up at him when he didn't respond immediately. "Yes?" he was staring at me, mouth opening and closing. It was like he had a million things to say, but could make none of them form into words and come out. "Can I help you with something? Taking your foot out of your mouth perhaps? Retrieving your tongue from a cat? Casting the counter curse that makes you stop imitating a goldfish?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"You're… very odd." He said shaking his head and sitting down next to me since it was the only seat left. James, Lily, Jill, and Peter were opposite me, Remus and Bindi were to my left and Sirius to my right.

"Thanks. You're odd too. Want some bacon?" I held out the basket for him.

"Sure…" he took the basket and fixed me with a look something like suspicion and confusion mixed together. I ignored him and began reading my book.

"What are you all up to today?" Jill asked the guys. I was paying attention, but I don't think they know I can read and listen at the same time, so they didn't bother to include me in the conversation.

"We've got class all day today. No free periods." Sirius responded.

"That sucks." I heard Lily say, like she didn't already know their entire schedule. "When does quidditch practice start back up?"

"Next week, but if I had it my way it's be this afternoon."

"Why not? Everyone on the team is obsessed with playing, I'm sure they'd love to get back out there after this long break we've had." Bindi pointed out.

"Hey! I'm not obsessed!" Jill and Sirius objected at the same time. Everyone chuckled at them, including myself.

"I have to find another player. Jones was messing about over break and fell from his broom. He landed back and head first. He's been unconscious for three or four days now apparently. McGonagall sent me a letter telling me not to expect him for practices or anything when we got back and to send a letter to his parents since I'm Head boy and a Gryffindor and Team Captain of the Quidditch team he plays on."

"That's awful. I hope he's okay."

"He'll be fine I'm sure, the Healers are doing wonderful things these days." Remus said from behind his Daily Prophet.

"Well, in the meantime I have to find either a new Seeker, or someone to play Chaser while Lily or I sub as Seeker." James sighed in irritation. "And the team was doing so well too."

"Who do we know that plays Seeker?" Jill asked.

"Well there's Briggs, Smithers, Johnston, or Reeves. They all tried out in September, but none of them were worth beans." Lily said.

"Remus, are you sure you don't want to pla-"

"No."

"But Remus, we know you're good at catching the stupid little snitch and your flyi-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because people like me don't belong 50 feet in the air. It's a tad nerve wracking. We're very grounded people." What the he11 is he talking about 'people like him'? Everyone else mumbled some sort of agreement so it would seem there was a secret I wasn't clued in on. Maybe it had to do with the monthly disappearances of his. Maybe he was a werewolf sneaking off every full moon in the cover of darkness to a hidey hole where he could be kept safe from himself and others.

Yeah right.

"I guess we'll just have to hold try outs again." Lily finally broke the silence.

"You sure there isn't anyone else we know who plays Seeker?" Sirius asked.

"I do." I said nonchalantly. I know I seemed calm and distracted on the outside, but really I had read the same line about 60 times now because I was too busy screaming 'I DO I DO I DO' in my head. I not only played Seeker, I love Quidditch. I used to play on a team and was the co-captain for a few years.

"Excuse me?" Sirius half laughed, half blurted.

"I play Seeker." I repeated, flipping a page in my book.

"Really?" James was curious; you could hear the curiosity in his voice. "On a proper team or just for fun with friends and stuff?"

"I Co-Captained a team for four years. I was Seeker. I was pretty good too. I haven't played since summer, and I haven't played in a real game for about a year and a half now." I scanned the final line in my book and flipped another page.

"Really?" James was all excited now. Apparently I have potential. And honestly I'd love the chance to get back out there and play in a real game again. He11 I'd love a reason to fly again. I mean, quidditch is great fun, but flying is freedom on a stick. I hadn't done much flying at Hogwarts, I didn't want to get in anyone's way or get yelled at by a teacher for being out of bounds or something.

"Time for class!" Lily sang out excitedly. She ireally/i likes school.

I stood and marked my place in my book and gathered my bag. When I turned to walk out of the Hall, I realized Sirius was staring at me again, this time with something more like astonishment on his face.

"Helloooo?" I waved my hand in front of his eyes.

"What?"

"Come on Skippy, we've got Charms." I rolled my eyes and brushed past him.

"Skippy?" he asked, catching up to me.

"Your new nick name."

"Skippy?" this time he sounded a little condescending.

"You got a problem with it Skippy?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Blow it out your ear."

"Hey!" he stopped in his tracks.

James, Remus, and I were about ten steps ahead of him. Lily, Bindi and Jill had just turned down another corridor to get to their first class, whatever it is and Peter had vanished to Merlin knows where.. I glanced back over my shoulder at Sirius. "Keep up Skippy, we're leaving you behind." He ran to catch up with us again, but still lagged a few steps behind us the entire way to class.

During Charms I sat next to Remus and contemplated a number of things. How it had happened that I was becoming friends with the people I had yelled at the day before for being rude idiots. What Remus meant by 'his kind of people'. Where those four numbskulls were always running off to in the middle of the night. How the aforementioned numbskulls never got caught while they were running around in the middle of the night. Why the professor doesn't just Wingaurdium Leviosa himself about all day instead of standing on stools and piles of books. Most of all, why Sirius kept sneaking strange glances back at me when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

Finally class ended and we were off to Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall seemed to actually notice me for the first time when I walked into the room with the Marauders.

"Sirius no pranks this period, save them for later this month. I'd like to actually get peoples minds back into class today if you don't mind." She said to him as he walked in the class.

"No problem Professor. I'll schedule the first prank for this class sometime next week, sound good?" Sirius replied flashing a charming smile at McGonagall then taking his seat in the front row where she could keep an eye on him. Sirius is good in all of his classes, Charms and Defense are his strongest, but Transfiguration is his favorite. He and Professor McGonagall seem to have an understanding that relies on a certain amount of mutual respect. I can understand how Sirius could respect McGonagall, but how he managed to earn her respect I've yet to figure out.

"James, we need to have a meeting after classes today about what we're going to do about the quidditch team. Jones won't be back in school for some time it seems."

"Yes Professor, I agree. I've actually got a few ideas on the subject. As a matter of fact, here's one of them." James turned and smiled at me. McGonagall looked at me and blinked quizzically.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" she asked. See what I mean? It's like my teachers look at me and immediately develop amnesia for my face and name.

"Yes. I'm Becca Burns, I've been in your class for a year and a half now, and I'm the fourth addition to the 7th year Gryffindor girl's dorm." I said trying not to let my impatience come through in my voice.

"Oh! Yes of course! I met with you when you first came to Hogwarts to plan your schedule, I remember now." She nodded her head, and then turned back to James. "She plays Quidditch?"

"Not only that, she plays Seeker. iAnd/i she's apparently pretty good."

"No?"

"Yup. She Co-Captained her team back in the States. She is a little out of practice apparently, but we can soon remedy that."

"Good. Sounds like a fine candidate, but I think we should hold tryouts still, just in case there's some loose talent floating around that didn't try at the beginning of the year."

"Yes Ma'am, I'll get right on it." James winked at her and took his seat next to McGonagall.

I turned to walk to the back of the class where I usually would sit, but McGonagall had other ideas. "Miss Burns, would you mind sitting up here in the front today? I'm a little unaware of your progress in this class in the practical portion." I sat my books down next to Remus yet again. McGonagall leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially "Besides, it wouldn't do to have Sirius staring over his shoulder all class now would it?"

"Um… I suppose not…" What in bloody he11 is she talking about?

McGonagall turned her attention to the black board and waved her wand so that it began to fill with notes. I glanced over at Remus who was smirking at me.

"What?" I asked quietly.

"McGonagall's right, you're just the type."

"Erm… what?"

"Oh, never mind…"

"But—"

"Shh! She's starting class." Remus began taking notes, a serious expression on his face.

I sighed and followed suit.

After a good hour of note taking and lecturing Professor McGonagall decided it was time to review some of the spells we had covered in the first half of the year practically by actually practicing them. Go figure.

I was working on changing the appearance of my partner, Remus, so that his hair color was purple when McGonagall walked over and observed my progress. Transfiguration isn't me best class, but it's not my worst either, so I was doing fairly well with the review even though I hadn't practiced in a couple of weeks.

I waved my wand and said the spell silently in my head and a flash of yellow-orange light shot out of my wand and hit Remus in the forehead. After a moment's hesitation, his hair began to change color for its usual light brown to a nice bright purple. I congratulated myself by smiling brightly.

"Miss Burns, what color is his hair?"

"Purple."

"What color is his hair supposed to be?" Apparently when a student changes another students hair purple it's conceived as a mistake in the spell.

"Purple." Too bad I wanted it to be purple.

"Why purple?" McGonagall seemed a bit confused.

"I like the color purple, blue would have made him look a tad bit too pale and pink would have just made him look silly. Purple on the other hand brings out the yellows in his eyes." I said innocently. I really wasn't trying to be funny, that's just the way I think of it. I mean, if you're going to change someone's hair color, why not make it an odd color? And if you're going to make it an odd color, at least make it one that will complement the person in question.

"Well then, would you mind changing his color to something more subtle?" She obviously didn't believe me. Probably she heard that excuse before.

"Sure. Black or red?"

"Red with black highlights." Sirius and James were hovering over my shoulders now.

"Red with black highlights it is Skippy."

"Stop calling me Skippy!" I ignored Sirius's outrage and yet again said the spell silently, concentrating on the color I wanted and waving my wand at Remus. The same yellow-orange light hit him square in the forehead and moments later his hair began to change from bright purple to a natural red about the same color as Lily's with black highlights.

"Hmm…. Needs something…" I scratched my chin. "Oh! I know!" I waved my wand again and brown highlights appeared as well, helping the black and red mix more naturally.

Everyone seemed to be a bit stunned. Sirius's eye was twitching, James was blinking stupidly, and Remus was fiddling with a loose strand of his hair trying to get an idea of what it looked like. McGonagall was smiling lightly.

"Well Miss Burns, it appears you're doing well in this class. Do keep up the good work. And speak up more in class; you obviously know what you're doing, so show it more often." Did she really just chastise me and compliment me at the same time?

"Yes Ma'am." I said with a southern accent. I was mocking her, yes, but she doesn't know that.

"How did you do that?" James asked.

"Um… I learned this spell in my fifth year. All I did this year was learn to say it silently, in my head. Plus I practice it a lot on my brother. He absolutely hates it because there's no proof it was me. He's a metamorphamagous you see. I change his hair to pink and my mom thinks 'Oh he must have done that on his own on accident.' He complains that it won't go away because I spelled it so it would stick for 24 hours and she thinks 'He's just having trouble getting a handle on his metamorphamagus skills, he'll figure it out eventually.' It's actually a fun way to spend a few hours. My favorite was when I made his hair polka dot pink and green. Drove him batty." I gazed off into empty space, chin resting on my fist, elbow resting on my desk, and reminisced about the antics I had gotten up to this past summer until my silent reverie was broken by the low maniacal chuckles coming from behind me. "Erm, what are you up to now?"

"Oh, nothing." Remus had moved around to huddle with the guys while McGonagall was on the other side of the room.

"Thanks by the way." Sirius smiled evilly and continued to plot something underhanded with his friends.

"Right. What's going on?" I shoved my way into their little huddle.

"You know, you're pushier than Jill." Sirius eyed me with irritation.

"Yes, thank you, now what are we plotting?"

James and Sirius exchanged glances, then James and Remus. Remus shrugged and James nodded. It was like they had their own little silent language. Lunatics.

"Jill is a Meta as well, we're going to use your idea on her. We were just deciding what color scheme to use on her."

"Oh, I see." Mixed feelings. I was only just becoming friends with the girls; I didn't really want them mad at me now.

"And you can't tell any of the girls, they'll murder us before we even get a chance to do anything."

"I don't know…."

"If you're worried about them getting mad at you, don't. They'll probably just blame us anyways." Remus said. "Mainly those two. They seem to think I'm completely innocent of any plotting when it comes to these pranks. Apparently I'm the voice of reason." Remus rolled his eyes and James and Sirius snickered.

"What the he11, I might as well give it a go."

By the time Transfiguration had ended we had the entire prank planned. We all walked to lunch, laughing about how the girls would react. Somehow I had been a little more accepted among them during that class, though Sirius still gave me strange looks every now and then.

We had a quick lunch with the girls then all eight of us, Lily, Jill, Bindi, James, Remus, Peter, Sirius and I, made our way to my best and favorite class: Defense Against the Dark Arts. Yippy! I love this class.

I practically skipped to a seat at the very front and center of the class room and began to take my books out.

"No need for your books today Miss Burns. We're going to have a practical session today." Professor Michaels, my favorite Professor and the only one to notice I existed in the last year and a half, walked up to me and smiled. "I like the enthusiasm though."

"Yeah, well, I like the class. So what are we doing today? Review?"

"A little review a little new. I'm going to teach you all how to duel properly, not that it'll matter in a fight with a Death Eater."

"What? Because Death Eaters are all dirty cheaters with no idea of what rules are?"

"No, because they know the rules and cross them anyways, and because they use curses that currently there exists no counter to. Remember, if you ever get into a fight with a Death Eater, I don't care who it is or what the occasion may be, you duck and cover and run away."

"Yes Sir!" I gave him an army salute and began putting my books back into my bag. "Need any help setting up?" I offered.

"Sure, just give me a hand moving these desks to the back of the room." The two of us began moving desks while the entire group I had walked here with sat on desks next to the door. When I reached them they all turned and looked at me with little smirks on their faces.

"Urm… something I can help you with?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, no, we're fine." Lily said quickly.

"Well then could you move? I need to get these desks to the back of the room."

"Yeah, we know." Bindi said, snickering a little. They all hopped off the desks and waited for me to finish moving the last of the desks.

"So." I smiled.

"So…" Jill had an evil glint in her eye. Uh oh, I recognize that glint. It's the very same glint she had in her eye just before she made ten gallons of blue paint fall on a group of first years. Crap.


	2. Chapter 2

– Chapter 2 –

Quidditch Qualities and Crushing Crushes

Defense class was great fun. I dueled several of my class mates who all, for some reason, immediately switched to a different partner after one bout with me. It was quite irritating. Eventually I ended up partnered with Sirius.

"So, you're excellent at Transfiguration, how are you at Defense?" Sirius asked as we went through all of the ceremonial walking and bowing and waving and such that leads up to the actual dueling.

"Correction, I'm excellent at those kinds of spells in Transfiguration. I'm only Okay at Transfiguration and Charms." We had finished all the ceremonial crap and were now facing off, preparing for the actual dueling part.

"Really[i_Petrificus Totalis![/i_" Sirius waved his wand and the spell shot out at me. I have to give him credit, he's fast and his spells pack a punch, but his aim could use some work.

"Yes, really. [i_Stupify![/i_" My aim was good, but he managed to dive to the side at just the right moment. "Now I'm excellent in Potions. It's a lot like cooking, and I do a lot of that when I'm at home. It's all about knowing your ingredients and how well one works with or against another. The balance is the key to a good potion. My other classes I'm good at mainly because I'm interested in them." I dodged another curse from Sirius and sent back one of my own.

"Interesting, I'm sure." Sirius sent another body binding spell at me, this time his aim was true, but I ducked, spun around in a 360 degree turn, and used my momentum to pop back up to my feet and shoot off another curse just after his passed over my head.

"I'm not so sure about my Defense skills though. What do you think?" I asked as I walked up to his frozen form, smirking. My last spell had hit him full on leaving him properly speechless in his full body bind. "Hello? You in there?" I knocked on his forehead and his eye glared holes in my head.

"Miss Burns, how many times have I told you not to toy with them once you've won the duel?" Professor Michaels said, walking over to inspect our work. He looked at Sirius's expression and smiled a little, covering his mouth with his hand to muffle the small laugh that escaped his mouth.

"Yes Professor, sorry." I waved my wand absently at Sirius, releasing him from his frozen stance.

"Gah! You know that was unnecessary." Sirius said, almost falling to the floor as he had been trying to dodge my curse when it hit him.

"Yeah, but it was funny. Besides, I think I made my point." I smiled innocently at him.

"What point?" Michaels asked.

"Nothing Professor, I was just asking her if she was any good in Defense, obviously the answer is yes." Sirius replied rolling his eyes.

"I suppose you'll want to change partners now too? I really don't understand how you keep managing to scare them all away Becca." Michaels shook his head in confusion.

"Well, because she's scary. She gets this whole 'eye of the tiger' thing going when she's dueling. But I'd like another crack at her if you don't mind." Sirius replied.

"Eye of the tiger?" Michaels was a pureblood wizard and obviously didn't recognize the muggle reference. Which brings to mind the obvious question: when had Sirius seen the movie 'Rocky'?

"It's a muggle movie reference sir." I supplied. "It means I get extremely intense when I duel."

"Ah, I see. Well, carry on then." Michaels waved for us to continue and wandered off to observe a duel between Remus and Bindi. I smiled and watched him for a moment.

"Wow, you've got it bad." Sirius was laughing at me lightly.

"Got what bad?"

"Oh, nothing." He looked around innocently.

"I like you better when you're frozen." I glared at him.

"I'm sure you do. So, back to the dueling then?"

"Back to the dueling." I sighed and raised my wand.

After Defense we had an hour before dinner started, so I followed the group outside onto the grounds. They walked down to a beech tree with branches low enough to the ground for climbing into that was just off the edge of the Lake. I wondered why on earth we would go outside when it was freezing cold and snowing out and sit under a tree. Then my question was answered when Lily waved her wand and about twenty good sized baIIs of flame appeared around us giving off a good amount of heat. The flame balls move so that they were in a circle around us with one flame ball hovering next to each specific person. They gave off enough heat that I was sweating in my coat, sweater, and long sleeve t-shirt.

Sneaky devils. "Where'd you learn to do that?" I asked.

"Bindi found the spell somewhere. She may look quiet but she's a little devil this one." I laughed inwardly at the joke I had made before I even knew it would be a joke. If that even makes any sense of course.

"Sweet. So…" awkward moment... awkward moment…

"So?" Sirius asked raising an eyebrow mockingly.

"So when are quidditch tryouts going to be?" I asked James.

"Probably this weekend; McGonagall and I are going to meet and talk about it after dinner. She likes to be present at try outs."

"A real quidditch buff that lady." Sirius said.

"Yes, she is isn't she?"

"Moving on, you and I have Prefects meeting tonight James." Lily jumped into the conversation.

"What's on the agenda?" James asked, a serious, no pun intended, look coming over his face. James Potter, serious about something, I never though I'd see the day. I guess anything is possible huh?

"We're deciding dates for Hogsmeade trips for the rest of the year and discussing what we're doing for Valentines Day."

"After that Halloween party and the Yule Ball I don't think we have enough money for a class graduation party much less a valentines party." James's eyebrows scrunched together as he mentally added numbers.

"You could have a fundraiser!" I said excitedly. I love fundraisers. I also love being helpful. Sometimes. And apparently this wasn't going to be one of those times.

"A fundraiser?" James said questioningly. Lily looked quite pleased with the suggestion and I could see the wheels turning in her head.

"You could auction off stuff, get people to buy it and raise money for graduation." Bindi explained to James.

"Oh." He said and then began thinking as well.

"We'll want to do something Valentine related…" Remus was puzzling over it now too. He's the other 7th year Gryffindor Prefect.

"I've got it!" Jill yelled jumping up and down. Sirius, who had been leaning against a tree trunk practically asleep, was shocked awake and as a result fell forward landing face first in snow. "Good one Snow White." Jill rolled her eyes while Lily and I laughed at the joke. The others didn't really understand the reference, but they laughed just the same at Sirius being called by a girl's name.

"Ha ha, very funny." Sirius grumbled standing back up and digging bits of snow off of his face and clothing.

"What have you got Jilly?" Bindi asked, reverting back to the previous topic of conversation.

"I know what we can do for the fundraiser!" she got a maniacal look on her face. Oh God. "We can auction off people!"

"Erm… that's illegal." Lily said, eyeing Jill strangely.

"No, no, not for keeps! We can auction off people for the day. If you buy them then you have to spend the day with them in the manner of their choosing, as long as it's appropriate." Jill explained.

"And to go with the Valentine theme, we can make it a Valentine date thing... the person you buy spends the day on a date with you." Lily suggested.

"We should make it so that the girls are the ones up for auction; it's more appealing that way. They guys won't get into it as much as the girls will with the dressing up and everything." James said.

"That's just a little sexist." I commented. I didn't like the direction it was going at the moment.

"But he does have a point." Jill agreed.

"Yeah, and for fairness, just so people's feelings don't get hurt, we should make it somewhat anonymous." Bindi said from her spot on the ground. At some point while I wasn't looking she had sat down on the ground back to back with Remus and begun reading a book, as was he.

"Well, we can figure that out at the meeting." James smiled "Now which of you lovely ladies would like to volunteer to be in the auction?" James smiled slyly.

"WE WILL!" Jill yelled, grabbing my arm and Bindi's from where she was on the ground and dragging them into the air.

"Hey! But I-" I tried to protest, but James cut me off.

"Good! Glad to hear it. Lily? How about you?"

"I was thinking that you and I could host it as Head Boy and Head Girl." She said, bringing out a notepad and writing down Jill, Bindi and my names.

"Hey now, I don't want to do this!" I protested.

"Too late!" Jill smiled.

"But-"

"No."

"I-"

"No."

"Bu-"

"No. You're doing this cause I say so got it?" Jill half glared at me.

I sighed "Fine. But I won't enjoy it."

"Works for me!" Jill smiled brightly at me, then, with a glance at her watch and an exclamation of "Dinner time!" she began skipping off towards the castle.

"Oh! Oh! Skipping!" I said excitedly, and then skipped off after her singing "We're off to eat some dinner! Some wonderful house elf made dinner!"

After dinner the Marauders, as the boys were called in honor of their various misadventures and trouble making attempts, went off to, what else, get into trouble. Lily gave them a glare as Sirius pretended to drag a reluctant James and Remus down the hall. Peter followed sullenly, head bowed and hands in pockets.

"Please, like Remus is actually reluctant to go off with them? He'd be the leader if he weren't clever enough to be the brain behind the operation and still lay low enough in the group to keep the teachers thinking he's the innocent voice of reason." Bindi rolled her eyes as we walked back towards the Gryffindor Tower.

"James isn't any better, he's bloody Head Boy and still he goes off with those three troublemakers and, well, causes trouble." Lily seemed to be taking this personally, as if she was upset that she had yet to entirely reform her boyfriend into the perfect rule abiding Head Boy.

"You do realize that changing James to fit your idea of the perfect boyfriend or the perfect Head Boy or whatever it is you're trying to make him is just going to push him away. I mean, sure he's madly in love with you, but once the honeymoon period is over and he realizes he's no longer himself, that he's been changed into something he's not, he's going to have issues with it. Those issues are very likely going to translate into relationship problems." I said this before I had the chance to shut myself up. It's not like I have a lot of authority in the relationship business, so my advice may be poor, but if I were James and my girlfriend was trying to change me to suit her purposes, I would be upset.

"Um, huh?" Lily blinked at me.

"It's just that, he loves you and all, and you seem to love him, but if you're constantly trying to change him, well, maybe you don't actually belong together." I explained quietly.

"You're saying they should break up?" Jill snapped angrily. I knew from watching them the year before that Jill was the one who had originally tricked them into dating. Well, tricked Lily into dating James. James did so willingly.

I swear watching them was like a soap opera, I'll miss it when I graduate.

"I just meant that, well; you shouldn't try to change someone if you love them."

"You know what; you're really starting to irritate me." Jill was working her way into a nice tantrum directed at me when Bindi laid a hand on her arm and raised an eyebrow.

"Calm down, she's just pointing out a valid opinion on the matter. And I think she's right. If you love someone, you accept them as they are faults and all. If they improve themselves to your standards it should be of their own choice, not from your pushing." Bindi winked at me then began teasing me "A problem I'm sure you don't have with Professor Michaels."

"Wh-what do you mean?" I was fairly shocked at her implication that I was in love with Professor Michaels. I mean, wouldn't you be?

"She means the little crush you have on Professor Michaels." Jill smiled smugly.

"I have a crush on Professor Michaels? I mean, I don't have a crush on Professor Michaels! He's my defense Professor! And he's erm… much too old for me!"

"He's only what? 21? You're 18 now right?" Lily asked.

"No, not until March 6th, I'm a young 'en."

"Well still, he's only like 4 years older than you, not that bad." Lily pointed out as we began walking again.

"Plus, you know, it helps that he's hot." Jill added.

"And he definitely knows his business in defense, especially at such a young age." Bindi nodded.

"But I don't have a crush on him!" I exclaimed.

"Don't have a crush on who?" a male voice asked from behind us. Oh crap, please, oh please, don't be him.

I turned around to see who it was and found none other than the only other 7th year Gryffindor boy, Christopher Anderson. He also happens to be a good looking guy. With brown hair that curls over his ears and falls across his forehead just above his blue eyes and standing at 5'10" with an athletic build, he's actually pretty hot. Of course, he doesn't compare to Sirius's standard of hotness. No earthly creature can measure up to that standard; especially since he set it himself. I rolled my eyes at this thought, and Chris mistook it for me rolling my eyes at him. He raised an eyebrow.

"It's 'whom' not who. And I don't believe it's any of your business Chris." I said, turning around and continuing on my way. Amazingly the girls followed my lead. I actually had people taking their cues from me for once, a new experience in this environment.

"Wait a second, do I know you?" Chris asked, catching up to us. We had what I refer to as our 'shop walk' on. Basically it means we were walking really fast without actually running and without looking retarded like speed walkers do. I have perfected my shop walk by following my mom around malls since I was about 5 years old.

We reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and I said the password "Sentry". The portrait swung open, nearly smacking Chris in the head. Lucky for him he ducked just in time and it passed over his head harmlessly.

"You're a Gryffindor? I've never seen you before and you're much too old to be a first year. Are you a transfer student?" he continued asking me questions. I had longed for someone, anyone to ask me these kinds of questions last year. Now they were just annoying.

He was still following us as we walked through the commons, so I whipped around when he least expected it and answered his question. What? I like to catch people off guard. "Yes, I _[iwas[/i_ a transfer student. I transferred into 6th year last year. Now I'm a 7th year. You have more of an excuse than the others for not noticing my presence since we've only ever had Ancient Runes together." I turned and sat my bag down on the table I was about to sit at. Lily had already managed to sit down and take out her books and notes. Jill had plopped her bum onto the table and put her feet in the chair and was watching Chris and I with great amusement. Bindi was still standing watching Chris and I talk, probably because we were blocking access to the third chair on the other side of the table. I sat down in my seat and began taking books out of my bag.

"Well, I can see that you're busy, I'll just be off. It was nice to meet you, um…?" he held out his hand awkwardly, fishing for some help with my name.

I sighed and allowed myself to show mercy on the poor guy "It's Becca. It's nice to meet you too." I smiled apologetically and shook his hand lightly, then turned to my books. He smiled back and then walked away giving Bindi, Jill, and Lily a little wave before bouncing up the stairs to the Boys Dorms. No, really, he [i_bounced_[/i.

"Well that was… new." I said after a short, but thoroughly awkward moment during which Lily pretended to study (I [i_think_[/i she was pretending at least), Bindi pretended to be fascinated with the fabric of her Hogwarts uniform, and Jill stared at me with an extremely pleased look on her face.

"You know, I am so glad we decided to be friends with you." She finally said.

"And why is that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because after we managed to hook up Lily and James, life got a little boring, but now we have a whole new love life to meddle in." she smiled evilly at me. It was like a cat smiling at a mouse just before swallowing it whole.

And I was the mouse.

"Oh no, I don't think so, just back away from my love life ladies, I can handle things just fine by myself." I held up my hands palm out in an attempt to ward them off. It didn't work.

"Good luck, I tried that and yet somehow they managed to meddle, maintain our friendship and find me a boyfriend who, as of yet, ahs proven to be very acceptable." I detected a slight tone of amusement in Lily's voice as she turned another page in her notes. She was the old mouse; she'd already been eaten for lunch, now I was up for dinner. I pity whatever poor shlum gets to be desert.

After a grueling 3 hours in which I altered attempts at studying with evasion of Jill's obvious prying and Bindi's clever prying into my love life, I finally gave up and spilled my entire dating background.

Or at least I would have if the boys hadn't reappeared at that exact moment. Some call it luck, I call it great timing; looks better on the job applications.

"What are you girls chatting about?" Sirius asked in his usual cocky manner.

"Why, you of course Sirius, because you're the center of the universe and we couldn't possibly go a single second of the day without talking about you!" I replied, acting the part of the ditzy blonde, twirling my hair around my finger.

"That's not nice you know." Sirius said, giving me an annoyed look.

"No, but it sure is funny." I smiled.

"As amusing as it is watching the two of you try to out do one another in your level of cleverness, I think I'm going to head up to bed, it's getting rather late wouldn't you say?" Lily stood, tossing perfectly organized books and folders into her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder.

"Yeah, I think I'll j-j-join you!" Jill yawned, standing and gathering together her belongings as well.

"Remus? Can I have a word with you?" Bindi had put her stuff away a good hour ago after finishing an essay. Now she simply tossed the book she was reading inside her bag and carried it over to a far corner where she and Remus could talk in relative privacy.

"I think I'll go to bed as well." James said, wrapping an arm around Lily's waist and walking her to the steps leading up to the girl's dorms. Jill followed behind them, rolling her eyes and making smooch-y faces at the two lovebirds.

"I forgot something. I'll be back later." Peter said vaguely, running off and out of the Commons.

"Odd little fellow…" I commented as he tripped over the portrait hole then scurried out like a small rodent.

"Oh, by the way, Sirius?" Lily called from the dorm steps. "Becca won that round of verbal sparring." She kissed James goodnight and hopped up the stairs before Sirius could yell anything on return.

"Hah! I win!" I exclaimed jumping from my seat and doing a little victory dance. "I win! You lose! I win!"

"Yeah, right." Sirius rolled his eyes at me.

"Yo gano, tu perdas, yo gano, tu perdas!" I continued gloating.

"What?" Sirius tilted his head to one side with a look of confusion on his face.

"Oh, right, I forget that almost everyone here hasn't taken Spanish. It's common in the States, with so many Hispanic people migrating there."

"What did you say?" he asked, truly curious now.

"I said 'I win, you lose.' Only I said it is Spanish, which makes it even cooler." I smiled smugly, gathering my books up.

"Oh, can you speak Spanish very well?"

"Eh, I'm okay at it. Conjugation was never my strong suit, but my accent is really good. I had a friend, Lizandra, she was from Cuba. She said my accent was perfect. She used to quiz me on my verbs and stuff all the time to help me study for exams and such." I sighed sadly, remembering all the fun times we had had during those study sessions.

"You miss the States then I guess?" Sirius was leaning against the edge of the table facing me but looking down at his feet.

"Not really the place as much as my friends. I actually had a lot of friends there, despite the fact that I was home schooled."

"Yeah?" I would have thought he would make some comment on how it was unlikely I'd ever had friends here, just because he could and he thought it would be funny, but he didn't. Instead he sighed, pushed off from the table, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Sorry." He mumbled.

"Sorry? For what?" he was acting extremely odd, especially for Sirius Black. He wasn't joking, insulting, yelling at or snogging anyone, he was being serious, and I'm sorry to say that a serious Sirius is more than a little disconcerting. It's like the end of the world or something. I was half tempted to call the Daily Prophet and tell them the apocalypse was upon us and we were all going to die any day now and that I knew this because Sirius Black was acting serious.

"For everything, or, well, nothing I guess. For last year, and this year too actually." Sirius was still staring down at his feet as if he found his shoelaces extremely interesting. Apologies weren't his thing.

"It's okay; I wasn't exactly trying to be seen now was I? Sorry about exploding on the train and all, I completely lost my cool, it's not something I do very often, especially to strangers. You got the worst of it too as I recall."

"Yes, the hitting me with your hair was just so cruel, I could have been blinded for life I tell you!" Sirius chuckled. He was joking again. Good. Serious Sirius creeped me out a little. It was eerie.

"Yeah, well, it was better than doing what I wanted to do at the time." I laughed as well.

"Which was?" Sirius smirked, daring me to come up with something good.

"I wanted to beat you over the head with the book I was carrying. It was a rather large book as I recall. I decided against it, didn't want to cause any permanent brain damage, you need all the brain cells you have left in there."

"Haha, very funny." He said flatly.

"I thought so." I smiled "I didn't want to scar that beautiful face of yours either, it would be a shame to lose something as pretty as that to look at."

"Come on, don't call me pretty and beautiful." He said, scrunching up his nose.

"Why not?"

"It's just so… girly… say something more manly… like…"

"Handsome?"

"Yeah! Handsome!"

"Good idea." I nodded, shouldering my backpack. "Well, I'm going to head to bed as well. Night beautiful."

"Hey!"

"Fine, fine, I won't call you beautiful." I laughed, rolling my eyes. Guys are so weird about their macho-manliness.

"You better not." He growled lightly.

"Or what? You'll snog me to death?" I teased him "Now [i_that[/i_ would be scary." Sirius gave me a strange look and crossed his arms.

We had reached the bottom of the girl's staircase, so I stepped onto the first step and turned back around to face him on eye level, seeing as he's at least 4 inches taller than me. I looked straight into his big blue-ish grey eyes and said "I guess I'll just have to stick with Skippy then, huh?"

"What? No! Not that again!" he looked skyward as if pleading with a higher power to get me to stop calling him Skippy.

"Yup!" I said, making sure to add an extra layer of pep to the word. "Night Skippy!" I called loudly enough for the entire common room to hear, running up the stairs before he could strangle me.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXPOSTING HEREXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That week I spent most of my time either hanging out with the Marauders and the girls, or up in the air flying on my broom. I had thought I might be a little rusty, not having flown in such a long time, but, as the muggles say, it's like riding a bike, you never forget how.

Saturday morning I woke up at around 8:30; late for me. I got dressed and went down to get some breakfast. It was the day of the quidditch try outs for the Gryffindor team, and the table was crowded and odd thing for so early on a Saturday. After having a small breakfast, I went back up to the Tower, gathered my broom and gloves, and made my way down to the quidditch pitch to warm up before the tryouts.

There was a few other there warming up, but I ignored them and jumped onto my broom. I flew a few laps around the pitch, then landed and proceeded to stretch out some of my stiffer muscles. When James, accompanied by the rest of the quidditch team, strode down to the pitch I was completely stretched, warmed up, and ready to fly. However, nervous butterflies fluttered in my stomach and my palms began to sweat. I hate things like this, they're so nerve wracking.

"If you're here for quidditch try outs, gather round!" James shouted. The other people in quidditch pitch hurried over to where James was my self among them. I scooted into a spot next to a group of 4th years and Lily, who gave me a wink while James began talking about the how the try outs would proceed. "Morning everyone, today we're only looking for someone for the Seeker position, so if you're here to play anything else take a hike." He paused and a few younger students grumbled and wandered off. "As for the rest of you, I'll start by introducing the team for those who don't already know us." James pointed out the people as he named them, going down the line from where he was standing at one end, to where Lily was at the other end. "I'm James Potter of course, Captain and Chaser, this is Sirius Black, a Beater, Jill Black, our Keeper, Will Windstorm, the other Beater, Win Windstorm, Chaser, and Lily Evans, our final Chaser." When he pointed out Will and Win I surveyed them closely. They were siblings, twins in their 5th year. Both had chocolate brown hair, Win's worn medium length and wavy, Will's short and spiky. They shared the same brown eyes speckled with gold as well. Will was taller than Win by a good half a head, but odds are they would both grow more in the next couple of years. James was speaking again.

"We're going to split you up into a couple of groups. Lily, Sirius and Jill are going to take half of you and put you through your paces flying wise, while Win, Will and I are going to take the other half and test your hand eye coordination. Now get into a straight single file line for me." We all did as he requested and he took out his wand. Waving it and muttering something, a piece of paper he had in his hand became a stack of papers. He handed them to Lily and Jill who proceeded to pin the pieces of paper to our backs. "The papers on your backs have numbers on them. When I say so I want you to first come over here and write which number you are and your name onto this sheet, then separate into even and odd numbered groups. Everyone got it? Every one got a number?" Everyone nodded, except for me. Lily was still pinning my number onto my back and I didn't want to wiggle around and get stuck by the pin. "Alright, go ahead then, get to it."

People began looking over their shoulders trying to see their own numbers on their backs and I laughed at them. Then I noticed I wasn't the only one laughing at them, James and Sirius were snickering as well. I had an idea this was more than just a handy grouping and identification system, it was also an intelligence test and a small prank as well. I rolled my eyes, and then walked up to Lily, who held the sign up sheet.

"What number am I Lily?" I asked, turning around so she could see it.

"12." She replied, the corner of her mouth turning in a small smile.

"Excellent, my lucky number doubled." I picking up the quill and wrote my name and number on the sheet. "Where to, boss? I'm an even." I asked James, who looked at me like I was spoiling all his fun and pointed to the far end of the pitch. "Over there, you're with Lily's group first."

I walked a few fast steps, then took small leap into the air, straddling my broom mid jump, and flew to the other end of the pitch. I was purposefully trying to show off. I love flying, and I'm good at it, and I'm not too bashful to admit that. In the years I had played on a team my friends and I had made up silly little stunt moves that couldn't really be used in games, but looked impressive none the less, and this little take off had been one of them. I could also do a round-off back handspring into a back flip landing on the broom in mid air, but I think that would have been overkill personally.

I flew to the other end of the pitch and waited there, hovering just above the ground, lying back on my broom like I was lounging on a couch. Another of our little tricks, it's more difficult to do that it seems, and requires a lot of balance. Once you're in position, it's easy to maintain requiring very little concentration, making it the perfect napping position. I laid there and stared up at the clouds until Lily, Sirius, and Jill had flown over and called us all to attention.

"Alright, we're going to basically play a few games." Lily started out. "We'll start with follow the leader, Jill, Sirius and I will switch off as the leader while you all follow us in a nice long line. Two lines actually. I want you three behind Sirius, you three behind Jill. Follow them until someone switches of with them as leader, and then follow the person who switched with them. Everyone understand?" No one said anything. "Good. Now get in line and mount your brooms."

I moved behind Sirius, who would be leading my group first. Behind me was a 4th year girl and a 6th year boy. Both looked quite determined, and yet when they glanced at our fearless leader, Sirius, their eyes held a small fear as well. "Hey Skippy," I got Sirius attention as he mounted his broom "What's with them? They look afraid of you for some reason."

"I'm a good flier, and I like to put them through their paces, though they needn't worry, I've been instructed to go easy on them until my third switch at least." Sirius grinned evilly back at me, glancing at the other two, who audibly gulped as they mounted their brooms. "Here we go." Sirius called over his shoulder, kicking off from the ground hard and soaring into the air. I followed him swiftly, keeping about 3 or 4 feet behind him at all times in case of an emergency stop. He lead us around our half of the pitch at a fast speed, making smooth turns, easy dives, simple pivots, things any first year fresh out of flying class could manage.

After a time Sirius left us and Lily took over while Sirius took over for Jill, who floated around, watching the two groups. Lily kicked the flying up a notch, going faster with sharper turns, steeper dives, sudden pivots, and the occasional spin or loop-the-loop. I followed her at about the same distance I had Sirius, keeping pace easily, only having trouble keeping myself from going faster than her.

Next Jill took over, the speed picked up even faster; she pulled us through some crazy turns, a lot of sharp dives with sudden pivots and spins. She managed to lose the 6th year at one point, but the 4th year managed to stay on my tail the entire time, and I was attached to Jill like glue. She almost managed to throw me on a couple of her sharper turns that came with in inches of colliding with the other line of flyers who were currently following Lily.

When Sirius was finally switched back in as our leader, I was beginning to tire a little. We had been at it for a good hour and a half already, the pace and intensity increasing with each new leader. As Sirius switched in as our leader again, I soon understood why the other two in my group had feared him. He was a excellent flyer, and he lead us through a long complicated series of sudden turns, dives, mid air stops, spins that spiraled around people in the other line of flyers, and pivots that even I had trouble duplicating.

The 6th year who had rejoined us at some point dropped out, the 4th year not far behind him, and then I was the only one left following him. When I glanced back and noticed this, I decided to have a bit of fun with him. After we pulled out of a complicated spin that involved pulling in and out of the large hoops that served as goals, Sirius went straight into a steep dive. I followed him, slowly gaining ground until I was even with him in the dive. Dives are my specialty, I'm reckless enough to attempt the harder ones, and have enough instinct to know exactly how far I can dive before I have to pull up to keep from slamming into the ground.

When I Sirius saw that I was level with him, he looked a little shocked, then gave me a smile and a wink and increased his speed. Typical Sirius, showing off again; of course, I was showing off as well, but then I was the one trying to prove I belonged on the team, not him. He's already on the team. I increased my speed as well, so that I was even with him, and then began a spin, heading straight for the ground, full speed. When we were about 15 feet from the ground, Sirius pulled up, arching up in a steady curve. He stopped when he saw I hadn't followed, and looked down at me with wide eyes.

I pulled from the dive at around 10 feet, my momentum sending my heels just inches from the ground. I rocketed back up as soon as I had pulled from the dive, looping Sirius and hovering next to him. He had this look on his face somewhere between worry, awe, and confusion. I laughed at him, waving my hand in his face.

"Hello? Anyone home in there?" I asked.

"That was really dangerous you know!" He finally burst out.

"Well, yes, of course it was. It was a controlled dive from 50 feet, turned spiral dive at 30, which I pulled out of at approximately 10 feet."

"You call that a controlled dive? You nearly rammed into the ground!"

"Oh, please, now you're just exaggerating. I was at least a good 5 inches off the ground."

"And that's not dangerous?!" he bellowed.

"No, not when you know what you're doing." I rolled my eyes at him, and then when I saw he didn't understand my point, I sighed and said "I'm an experienced flyer, Sirius, and dives are a specialty of mine. I've done steeper dives at faster paces from higher altitudes than that with less room to stop and pulled it off. Compared to some of those, this was a piece of cake."

Sirius stared at me like I was something alien, his mouth flopping open and closed like a fish while he searched for the right words to say. Thankfully, Lily flew up to us before he could fit the words into a proper sentence, or before his head could explode.

"That was crazy Becca! Where'd you learn to do that?" She asked glancing at Sirius. "And what did you do to him, his face is bright purple, and he's speechless."

"I just explained a couple things to him is all. The effort of using his brain seems to have caused a melt down of some sort."

Lily and I laughed as Sirius slammed his mouth shut and bristled at my comment. The three of us flew back to the ground and we took a break, drinking water from bottles some house elves had sent out and wiping our sweaty faces on our shirts or towels we had brought along. Eventually Lily called us all back over to tell us about the next drill or game we would be playing.

After we finished a couple more drills that had to do with flying stamina and reflexes, Lily sent our group over to James, Will, and Win. We had a short water break, during which the quidditch team consulted one another on a few things. Eventually, the water break ended and it was James's turn to put us through our paces.

"All right you slackers, here's what's going to happen. We're running 3 drills in succession. Every time you hear the whistle blow, you change to the next drill, when you get to the end of the list you start back at the beginning." He looked to make sure everyone was listening then continued. "The drills will be partnered. I want you to split into two lines facing each other. The person across from you will be your partner. For the first drill your partner will throw one of these golf balls and you will attempt to catch it. If you catch it, you will throw it back to them. If you don't catch it, then chase the bloody thing down and throw it for your partner. If you can't catch a golf ball thrown to you, then odds are you're not going to catch a snitch.

In the second drill your partner will throw the ball towards the ground, and you will give it a 5 count before diving after it. If you catch the ball then I want you to fly up to where your partner is and throw it for them. They will in turn retrieve the ball and fly back to where you are and throw it." James paused to make sure the instructions were sinking in.

"In the third drill the partner will throw the ball away from you, and while you chase it down, the partner will fly back and forth from your line to their line until you get back. Then you will do the same for them. The longer you take to get the golf ball, the more your partner will have to fly back and forth making them more tired." James eyed us all suspiciously "If I see anyone slacking off or trying to cheat around the drills, they're gone. Mount your brooms and make two single file lines in the air." Sensing the dismissal, me and my fellow prospective quidditch players hopped on our brooms and flew into the air. I ended up across from the same 4th year girl who had been following me in the follow the leader drill earlier.

"I'm Becca." I shouted a greeting to her.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Abigail." She yelled to me as Will and Win gave each of the groups a golf ball painted gold.

James ran us ragged, yelling for us to pick up the pace and keep moving every few minutes. At some point I half wondered if I was trying out for a quidditch team or if this was his idea of some sort of joke. Of course, having seen him talk about quidditch with that obsessed look in his eyes, I knew it wasn't.

We had a water break after 30 minutes then resumed the same drill. I can only assume this was to test not only our stamina and our hand eye coordination when under duress as well. After our second water break James waved in Lily, Sirius, Jill, and their group.

"I think that's all we'll need from you for today. I'll discuss it with the team and post who ever will get the spot in the commons tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. sharp. Thank you all for trying out, if you don't get the spot make sure you try out for a spot next year, I'm sure there will be plenty of open spots seeing as more than half of the team is leaving this year. Have a good rest of the weekend everyone." Recognizing a dismissal, everyone gathered their brooms and such and left the Quidditch pitch, many groaning and complaining about the hard work they had just been put through.

I waited for the area to clear out and walked up to the team. "So what'd you think?" I asked Lily. She looked at me worriedly and started to say something, but I cut her off. "I'm not fishing to find out if I made the team yet, that would be stupid. I was just wondering what you thought of the rest of them, think they'll make a good team next year? Or is Gryffindor House doomed in Quidditch after you all leave?"

"While none of them could ever measure up to our standard, they'll do." James smiled.

"They had better, especially if one of us ends up captain, I'm not settling for some crappy second rate team that can't even beat the Hufflepuffs." Will said, gesturing to himself and Will when he said 'us'.

"I'm sure they'll do just fine." Win replied, rolling her eyes. "We're off to lunch, later guys." She and Will wandered off the pitch, Will still jabbering about how he was going to whip all of them into shape next year if it was the last thing he did.

"I need a shower." Jill said, cringing as she pulled a jersey over her head, leaving her in a spaghetti strap tank. "And this needs washed." She held the jersey at arms length and wrinkled her nose at it.

"You think so?" Lily asked, rolling her eyes.

"Definitely." Jill replied seriously. Sirius snagged it out of her hands and gave it a sniff. "Hey! Don't sniff my sweaty jersey!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, this thing smells manly."

"Yes, we all know that the wreaking stench of sweat soaked jerseys seems very manly to you boys, but we girls find it gross and disgusting." I said. "I mean, would you date a girl who always smelled like one of your shirts after a particularly hard practice? I think not."

"You know, Pad, I think she has a point." James said, tossing his broom over his shoulder.

"Yes, I believe she may."

"Of course I do. Who's up for lunch?" I asked.

"Sounds good to me." Jill said.

"I'm hungry, let's go." Sirius added.

"You're always hungry Sirius." Lily pointed out off handedly.

The five of us made our way to the Great Hall for lunch, finding seats next to Remus and Bindi.

"Where's Peter?" James asked.

"He's got a potions tutor right now apparently. He was complaining about it being someone in Slytherin I think."

"Odd." Lily said.

"Why's that?" James asked.

"Well, if he needed help in potions I could have helped him. I've got nearly the best grades in the class. Plus I'm his friend; you'd think he would rather have me help him out than someone in Slytherin, especially the way you four go on about them."

"It's Peter; he's always odd about these sorts of things." Sirius shrugged it off. "Pass the potatoes please."

I raised an eyebrow at Sirius's use of manners and handed him the bowl full of baked potatoes.

"Yo, Prongs! The butter? Sometime today, mate?" He called rudely across the table. What the frick?

"Um, right." I muttered, blinking at my own potato. After a moment I shook myself mentally and pulled a book out of my back pocket. Sirius stared at me, and then looked down at my pocket, then the book, then back at the pocket.

"Where did you pull that from?" he asked.

"My pocket of course, would you mind not staring at my behind? Thanks."

"But… how did you fit it in there?"

"I'm a witch, duh. I magically made my pockets bigger on the inside on most of my shorts and pants." I rolled my eyes. "I can fit an entire broom into this pocket."

"Erm, wouldn't that be uncomfortable to sit on?" James asked.

"Well, of course it would, that's why my broom is laying on the table and not shoved into my back pocket now isn't it?" I ignored the rest of James and Sirius's silly questions, turning instead to my book.

I ate my food as I read, blocking out everyone around me and escaping into my own little world for a time. The peace and solitude of my little world was broken as someone bumped into me as they walked past. "Hey!" I said angrily, turning to stare down who ever it had been, only to realize it was Professor Michaels.

"Oh, sorry Miss Burns, I tripped over a first year." He smiled at me.

Oh, gosh. What a smile. And those eyes, you could get lost in them. I blushed and shook my head a little "No problem Professor, happens to the best of us. The ickle firsties are always underfoot aren't they?"

"Yes, they do seem to find the worst times to run past you and throw you off balance don't they?"

"Most definitely." I smiled. "May I come and see you after about our essay? I had a couple of questions about it."

"Yes, of course. How about just after dinner? I have a staff meeting after lunch that will probably take most of the afternoon."

"That's fine, I'll see you then."

"See you then, Miss Burns." He gave me a small nod and continued on his way to the Head table to eat with the other teachers.

"Smooth." Jill, who was sitting on my left, whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Real smooth." Lily agreed on my right.

"Would you two shut up about that? I do not like him!" I whispered harshly at the both of them, my face lowered over my book and plate.

"Then why did you just make a meeting to ask him about an essay you finished two nights ago?" Lily pressed.

I blushed "I have a couple of questions, is all."

"About what?"

"Erm… just… stuff in the essay."

Jill rolled her eyes and said "Smooth." Only this time the entire word was infused with sarcasm.

I sent her a small glare and went back to my book, ignoring the little hints the both of them dropped the rest of lunch.

That evening after dinner I went to see Professor Michaels, but when I got there I told him I had figured out the answers to the questions I had. He invited me in to have a cup of tea and talk anyways. We spent the next hour talking about all sorts of defense related topics, from curses and spells and anti-jinxes, to simple muggle fighting styles like Kung Fu.

We were in the middle of talking about how animagi forms could be extremely helpful in defense when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in." Professor Michaels called. The door swung open to reveal a young woman with short blonder hair and big brown eyes.

"Ah, Stephanie, this is one of my 7th year students, Rebecca Burns." Professor Michaels stood and smiled at the woman. "Becca, this is my girlfriend, Stephanie Winters."

"Oh." I squeaked.

"What was that Miss Burns?"

"Nothing, just, erm, clearing my throat." And I needed to. My chest hurt a little, and my throat was constricting slightly. I felt the overwhelming urge to either cry or hit something. "Nice to meet you." I said in a falsely pleasant voice. I stood and shook her hand. "I think I'll be going, it appears you have a date." I smiled half heartedly at Professor Michaels, placing my empty tea cup on its saucer.

"Oh, don't let me run you off." She said sweetly, smiling at me cheerily. Her smile made him smile, and his smile made my stomach churn in an unpleasant way.

"No, its okay, I need to be off before curfew anyways. See you in class Professor." I called over my shoulder; I gave Stephanie a small nod and walked briskly from the room.

When I got back to the commons and Jill and Lily began to pester me again, while Bindi sat writing an essay for potions, a small smile on her face, I had an answer ready to shut them up.

"Come on now, what did you two talk about?" Jill asked.

"Nothing. Defense stuff." I replied.

"Anything else?" Lily prodded.

"Well, no, not unless you count the last couple of minutes when his girlfriend showed up for their date." I added, purposefully avoiding their gazes, pretending to be absorbed in Jill's essay, which I was reading for grammatical errors. The two of them fell silent for a few minutes. When I glanced up at them, Lily and Jill were exchanging sad looks, while Bindi had glanced over the top of her parchment at me, to see how I was responding.

"I'm sorry Becca…" Lily started.

"Sorry about what?" I cut her off before she could say anything else. "I told you, I didn't like him, now will you please drop it?"

"Um, yeah, s-sure." Lily stammered slightly. Jill nodded slightly in agreement. Bindi, who was in the chair next to mine, reached over and patted me on the arm, giving me a reassuring look, then returned to her essay. I sighed, glad to have friends who understood when to shut up and leave me be.

The next morning at 11 a.m. everyone who had tried out for the Seeker position was crowded around the bulletin board waiting for James to post the results. When he stood from the table he had been playing Gobstones at with Sirius and walked over, parchment in hand, everyone cleared a path for him to the board. He dramatically plucked a pin from the board, slid the parchment into place, then pushed the pin back in to secure it. He cleared the area around the board in three swift steps. The crowd swarmed around the small parchment as he sat, unscathed, at the table with Sirius to continue their game.

A couple of seconds later sighs of frustration were heard as, one by one, the group disappeared to corners of the commons. When there were only a couple of people left waiting patiently to see the page, I stood and walked over to the board. My stomach churned nervously as I waited for the girl in front of me, the 4th year I had been partnered with the day before, looked at the list. As she looked at it she let out a whoop of joy. "I managed back up Seeker." She said as she walked towards her friends who also let out little 'yay's and 'woohoo's. I stepped forward to see the parchment for myself.

[b[uGryffindor Quidditch Try Outs – Seeker[/u[/b

Seeker – Becca Burns

Reserve Seeker – Abigail Sumner

I smiled to myself and walked back over to the table, picking my book back up and beginning to read. I could sense Lily and Jill exchanging looks while the rest of the people in the room who had been trying out for the position mumbled under their breath, wondering whether I just couldn't read or if I just wasn't excited about the position. I looked up at Jill, Lily, and Bindi and gave them a smirk and a wink, then returned to my book. I had been nervous as hell when went to look at the board, and I was incredibly excited to be back on a proper Quidditch team, but I wasn't about to go running around the commons like a first year on a sugar high screaming in joy about it. That would be immature. I would also be gloating and rubbing it in the faces of the other people who had tried out, something I didn't particularly want to do.

Instead I settled with smiling a self satisfied smile and pretending to read my book, while inside my head I was actually doing my victory dance to an M.C. Hammer song.

That afternoon I was congratulated by nearly everyone in the Gryffindor Tower. People I had never so much as said hello to or whose names I didn't even know came up to me and told me to make sure and kick some Ravenclaw butt in the next match. My friends whom were already on the team told me I'd be a great addition and that I had done a wonderful job at the try outs and I deserved to be on the team. Bindi simply rolled her eyes at all the commotion everyone was causing over one silly quidditch try out and told me congratulations, though she didn't envy me the heights I would be flying at. Remus nodded his agreement with this and joked about how it was now my responsibility to make sure Sirius didn't do something stupid, like lose his temper and beat the other players silly during the game, or try to flirt with the girls in the stands. Sirius responded to this by giving Remus a resounding smack on the back of the head and saying that he would never do any such thing, seeing as it might cost us the game. Peter squeaked out a little 'congrats', then ran off to his potions tutor once again.

After dinner I was on my way back to the Tower when Chris caught up to me in the hall. "Hey! I heard you made Seeker! Good job!" he smiled, falling into step next to me.

"Yeah, I did." I smiled back. "I was nervous about it too; I had some pretty stiff competition."

"Not from what I hear." Chris shook his head.

"Really? What have you heard?"

"That you're either insane or really talented on a broom. There was mention of a hundred foot dive to the ground while doing loop-the-loops around a wild hippogriff." He smirked.

"Yes, because that definitely happened." I rolled my eyes "This school has some of the worst gossip I've ever heard. Half of it isn't even believable."

"I know, you'd think that students at one of the top wizarding schools in the world would have something better to do than come up with outrageous rumors about Quidditch try outs."

"You'd think." I agreed.

"So I'm going to assume the hundred foot hippogriff dive was a load of bull."

"And rightly so, it was more like thirty feet and I was sort of racing Sirius. There wasn't a hippogriff in sight the entire time."

"I'm glad to hear it; they probably wouldn't have enjoyed being circled by a girl on a broom." He joked.

"No, they probably wouldn't have." We reached the portrait hole and I said the password "superglue" and walked inside, Chris just behind me.

"So, um, how has your first week back been?" He asked shyly.

"Pretty good. Classes have been easy, all review for out N.E.W.T.s, and I found a copy of a book I'd been looking for ages for in the library Friday. Then of course I got Seeker." I shrugged "How about you?"

"Oh, pretty good for me as well I suppose, just getting back into the routine." He replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and studying the floor carefully.

"Right, well, I'm going to go over by the fire and read now. I'll talk to you later I guess." I said. The conversation had become increasingly awkward, and I hadn't a clue why. Chris seemed to be getting nervous talking to me, and I've never been good at small talk, so when I turned and flopped down onto a comfy armchair with my book I was relieved.

About ten seconds after I had started reading, Jill came over and asked me why I had just walked off on Chris like that.

"I don't like awkward small talk." I informed her. "Why do you ask?"

"You're hopeless!" she tossed her arms in the air and looked up to the sky as if pleading with a higher power.

"Why's that?" I asked, puzzled.

"She thinks Chris likes you, and you aren't showing the slightest bit of interest like you should be, and it's throwing a slight wrench into her matchmaking plans." Bindi informed me, sitting down on the couch next to my armchair.

"Huh? Chris doesn't like me, we're just friends. Heck, we've only talked twice; we're not even friends, more like acquaintances."

"Oh, really? Then how come he's been pretending to read that history book while he's really been staring at you for the last ten minutes?" Jill asked, crossing her arms over her chest and daring me to find a good answer.

"I don't know, maybe he's day dreaming, staring off into space. I do that all the time." I shrugged. Jill has a screw loose I swear.

"Right, I'm so sure that's what he's doing, staring off into space. More like attempting to mentally will you to look at him or come over and talk to him or something."

"Uh-huh, right, sure." I nodded, turning back to my book.

"Hopeless!" Jill said again, the agitation clear in her voice. She stomped off to sit with Lily and finish her homework.

"Don't mind her." Bindi said, pulling her legs up under herself and curling into the corner of the couch. She opened a book of her own and began to read. Remus walked in with James, Sirius and Peter. He looked around the room and noticed Bindi on the couch. He crept over, noticing that Bindi was immersed in her book, and said "Boo!" loudly in her ear, causing her to jump and drop her book. "Remus! Don't do that!" she admonished him.

"Sorry, I just couldn't help myself." He smiled wolfishly at her and his eyes conveyed more than the normal mischief.

"That's okay sweet," she said, smiling softly back at him. "Grab a book and have a seat, Becca and I have proclaimed this the quiet corner."

"Will do." Remus touched her shoulder lightly then disappeared up the stairs to the boys dorms.

"So, what's going on with you and Remus?" I asked bluntly.

Bindi looked at me with shock clear in her face "What? Me and Remus? Please, we're just friends."

"Yeah, sure, and Crumple Horned Snorcacks really exist." I rolled my eyes. "Come on; spill the beans, how long have you two been dating?"

"I – we- but I- we're not-" Bindi stumbled for the right words to deny my claim with, but was interrupted by the reappearance of Remus, who sat down on the couch right next to Bindi, as close as he could get to her with out practically being in her lap, leaving an extremely large amount of space open on the rest of the couch. "Erm… please don't tell anyone?" she pleaded with me.

"Tell anyone what?" Remus asked, confused.

"Exactly, tell anyone what?" I echoed. If she wanted to keep it secret from everyone, that was her business, and I'd no right to let everyone else in on it.

"Thanks." She smiled her relief.

"Thanks for what?" Remus looked from Bindi to me, puzzled.

"No problem." I replied, ignoring Remus.

"No problem what?"

"Remus, darling, just read your book." Bindi said, returning to her own book.

"Um, okay…" he said uneasily.

I put my hand to my mouth and let out a quiet fake cough that sounded an awful lot like the word 'whipped'. Bindi glanced at me over her book and tried not to giggle.


	3. Chapter 3

—Chapter 3—

Valentines

The first Saturday in February was the quidditch finals and my first and only game as the Gryffindor Seeker. That morning I woke up early and went down to breakfast. Surprisingly James and Sirius, who normally never get up earlier than 10 a.m. if they don't have to, were already sitting at the house table.

I flopped unceremoniously onto the bench seat next to Sirius and across from James. I looked at the table and discovered there was no food there yet. Apparently the house elves don't make breakfast at 6 a.m.

Seeking a distraction from my rattled nerves and coffee-less state, I looked up at James. He was sat with his head in his hands, elbows braced on the table. He muttered under his breathe about something quidditch related as well.

Next to me Sirius was slumping in his seat staring blankly at the wall behind James's head. Every couple of minutes he would either yawn or sigh, shaking his head, then looked around the table for food that wasn't there yet.

Definitely NOT morning people.

Casting about for something less depressing than a half awake Sirius and a depressingly focused, yet nervous, James, I examined the ceiling. It was dark still, with only the faintest touches of light indicating that the sun would rise within the hour. This reminded me that I should either be curled comfortably in my window sill reading or, better yet, still be in bed sleeping at the moment. Sadly I had left my book in my room in my fit of nerves and so the option of reading here in this less than comfortable place was out.

I sighed and, deciding sitting up was much too much effort at the moment, slumped to the side, collapsing onto Sirius, my head and shoulders in his lap. He jumped slightly, and then looked down at me questioningly, raising one eyebrow.

"Too tired to sit. Slept bad. Need pillow, bed. You closer." I mumbled in short phrases, closing my eyes.

Mornings like this were never my strong suit. In a couple of hours, with a large cup of coffee in me, I will be wide awake and ready to go, but at the moment all I wanted to do was lay there and wish I was still in bed.

Sirius shrugged his shoulders and laid his head on the table, his arms still slack at his side. I had a feeling that once food and caffeine was in his system he'd be as bright, cheerful, and utterly irritating as usual, ready to cheer the team to the dressing rooms and beat the crap out of a bludger.

The passage of about an hour of time found James, Sirius and I in the same positions as Lily, Jill, Bindi, Peter, Win, and Will joined us, dropping into seats of their own on James's side of the table. From my spot half in Sirius's lap I heard Lily ask "Anyone seen Becca yet this morning?"

I grumbled vaguely and waved an arm around above the table.

"Becca? What're you doing down there?" Jill ducked her head under the table to look at me and asked. She was much too awake for this early hour.

"Sleeping. Need coffee. Now." I grunted again, glaring at her as she laughed at me. "When I'm awake, you'll be in pain." I mumbled to her.

"Not a morning person, are you?" Lily pointed out more than asked.

"Coffee first, morning second." I growled loud enough for her to hear me above the table.

"Bacon!" I heard Remus and Bindi chorus excitedly.

I popped out of Sirius lap when my mental process registered that bacon meant food, and food meant coffee. As I sat up I caught Sirius's chin with the top of my head. "Ow…" I groaned, rubbing the soar spot on my head where we had bumped.

"Speak for yourself; I bit my tongue." He glared at me, trying to form the words around a napkin he had pressed to his tongue, which was apparently bleeding slightly.

"Sorry," I said, grabbing the coffee, cream, and sugar from under James's hands. After drinking half a cup of coffee my mind was properly awake. I noticed that the Great Hall now contained at least 15 people per house table. It appeared that everyone got up early on game days, not just the teams playing. I looked t the people sitting around me.

Bindi and Remus were trying to force everyone to eat, piling food onto people's plates and eating massive amounts of bacon and sausage themselves. They must [i_really_[/i like bacon and sausage. It was the only thing they were eating, not that anyone else noticed, including them. James had stopped mumbling to himself and was now talking with Lily about strategy, munching on a bit of toast. Jill was much too cheerful, her nerves apparently causing her to go into hyper drive. When she spoke it was at a speed not known to mankind. Perhaps a humming bird could understand her if she were speaking bird, but that's the only living creature I can think of that could keep up with her speed of talk at the moment. Except perhaps me after a few pots of coffee at around 4 a.m. Win and Will were talking with one another chatting with a few of their friends who had come early to support their friends. Sirius was still sitting silently, eating his food, staring down at his plate with a serious expression on his face, almost as if he laughed or cracked a smile his eggs might lose their form and his bacon would run away from his plate.

I jabbed Sirius in the side with my elbow, making him look up at me. "They aren't going to run of you know." I said, hinting to his eggs.

"What?" he asked, glaring at me a little.

I sighed "It was a joke. You don't have to glare your food down, it's not trying to jump up and run away from you." He just grunted and turned back to his plate.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"What's a penny?"

"What's a penny? Oh, right, pure-blood [iand[/i British." I rolled my eyes. "A penny is a coin made of copper. It's used in the U.S. by the muggles." I explained. "The question was what's on your mind?"

He looked over at me with apprehension. "Promise I won't bite. I won't laugh either."

"I'm nervous. I'm not sure if I can measure up to standard. I hate feeling like I'm not good enough."

"Please, like we could beat them without your help? We need you and we need you in fit mental condition. Now where's the Sirius I know and love to hate? Where's the ego? The self assured prick? Come on, where'd you shove him? Which closet did you lock him in? Tell him to get his arse out here and get ready to play, because we're gonna kick some Ravenclaw ass today if it's the last thing I do!" I said this all with the most encouraging look I could, trying to build his ego back up to its usual overbearing proportions. IT worked too apparently, or at least I sparked something in him, because he tore into his food, finishing what was on his plate then jumped from his seat.

"Come on guys, let's go get ready." He said the usual fire back in his eye, the one that was always there when he spoke of anything quidditch related. He strutted out in front of our group; I walked behind him with Jill smiling to myself while trying to puzzle out what Jill was saying. Everyone else followed us silently. By the time we got finished changing into our quidditch robes James had returned to his usual self as well and gave us a nice short, but invigorating pep talk. Outside we could hear the other students tramping up the stairs to the bleacher seats. When James finished his little speech about the strategy to use with the Eagles, my stomach was tied in knots. I hadn't played in front of so many people for two years, and my old stage fright was coming back.

Everyone lined up in the hall just out of the waiting crowds line of sight while the announcer first introduced all of the Ravenclaw players. Then it was our turn and we each flew out of the hall in turn as our name was called, setting up in our positions on the field as we did so. I hovered about 15 feet above the others, ready to shoot into the sky when the snitch was released.

The announcer went quiet as the referee reminded us of a few of the rules and then counted down. Then she tossed the quaffle into the air and the bludgers and snitch were released. I shot into the air looking for the snitch which had disappeared in the initial confusion of the game.

Right off Lily, James, and Win scored ten points for us. Will and Sirius kept the bludgers moving, as did the Ravenclaw beaters. Jill hovered in a circular potion in front of the 3 large loops at our end of the field. I flew a little higher and looked around for the glint of gold that would be the golden snitch darting about.

There it was, over the crowd of spectators heads, hovering just out of their reach. None of them saw it though; they were all focused on the passing battle going on below me between the chasers. I started toward the snitch, gaining speed as I dove for it. As I neared the stands enough to see the people realized the person it was hovering over was Chris. People gasped as they realized I was diving straight at the stands, assuming I had lost control of my broom or something. Chris looked up at me, eyes wide; trying to figure out why I was diving straight at him then he seemed to refocus his eyes and realized that the snitch was there, just above his reach.

People dove to the sides, fearing that I would crash into them, but Chris just sort of dropped to his seat and kept looking up. He knew what I was doing, knew I was going for the snitch, everyone else simply thought I was crashing to my doom. The other teams Seeker had been fooled into believing the same thing, and didn't even bother to chase after me. When I was just ten feet from it the snitch seemed to realize it was in danger of being caught, and took off out across the pitch. I banked sharply, a foot or two from the stands and Chris, and cut back towards the pitch, trailing the snitch and gaining speed.

The Ravenclaw Seeker saw the snitch as it sped from the stands and gave chase now as well. I bet they felt fair foolish when they realized I had been diving for the snitch and they hadn't even seen it. The snitch was flying straight at the Ravenclaw Seeker, and he was flying straight towards it. I was giving chase to the snitch at full speed and gaining on if from behind. At some point it occurred to me that either one of us was going to have to turn away or we were going to collide. I think the muggles have a game like this called chicken where two cars drive straight at one another at full speed until one chickens out and turns.

At the last minute, just after the point of no return, the snitch cut up and left the Ravenclaw Seeker and myself to our collision. I pulled up on my broom handle, trying to pull into a vertical climb. At the speed we were going, if he tried to do the same we would collide for sure, and then it would be up to whom could handle the most pain and still hold onto their broom. As luck would have it, the Ravenclaw Seeker didn't even try to pull into a climb; instead he dodged me and my broom by diving down and to the side.

I continued to chase the snitch, gaining on it as we rose at least 80 feet in the air, if not 100, then saw it turn to dive back to the ground. I dove as well, pulling back wards in an arc to meet the snitch instead of following its exact path. The plan worked and I wound up 5 feet off its tail instead of the 20 foot distance I had before diving straight toward the pitch below. I dodged a couple of players, Lily's red hair whipped past me I know, as well as her pursuer. I sped up, gaining on the tiny golden orb, and a brown blob shot past my head; a bludger sent by the other team. I ignored it and continued in my dive as Sirius hit the bludger back towards the other team and reeled out of my way before I slammed into him. I was inches away, my hand outstretched to grab the snitch when something slammed into my side.

I glanced over and realized it was the other Seeker. They looked at me and I have them a wolfish grin, all teeth and wild menace, then spurred my broom on trying to make up for the space I had lost when the other Seeker had slammed me. It was too late. There was no way either of us was going to make up the distance we needed to, catch the snitch and pull from the dive unscathed. I pulled out of the dive and let the snitch go, the other Seeker chasing it in spite of my falling back.

I watched and waited, following the snitch with my eyes to see where it would turn, which direction it would shoot off to next. The Ravenclaw Seeker pulled from the dive 20 feet from the ground, and the snitch turned and pulled into the air again at around 10 feet. From my position, sitting and waiting above, I saw where the snitch went next while the other Seeker was still trying to keep from plummeting into the ground.

I ignored the plight of the other Seeker and shot after the snitch, which was now headed straight for the goal posts where Jill was positioned, waiting for the incoming Chasers to toss the quaffle at her. They were still to of rage now, but they would reach the goals at about the same time as I met up with the snitch. This was going to be close.

At the same time that the snitch reached the goals, I did as well, diving through one of the hoops, nearly missing Jill who, to her credit, didn't even flinch in my direction, she was focused on the quaffle being tossed to the center hoop. She managed to dive and save it, throwing it out to Win who then began passing it with Lily. I followed the snitch, not even a foot behind it, twisting in and out of the three tall poles towards the earth, then back up into the air again. I spun around and around in a corkscrew maneuver chasing it up and around until we had reached the hoops again. Jill dove to the right for the quaffle again, straight into the snitches path, and it was forced to dodge around her. I was just far enough to the left of Jill that I shot straight past her with out the need to dodge, coming above her barely a second before the snitch. It was all the advantage I needed.

As the snitch continued to climb I had turned back and dove down towards it, trapping it between myself and Jill. I reached out and grabbed for the snitch. I felt my fingers wrap around the cold metal, and pulled away so that I wouldn't slam into Jill. I missed her, but I had misjudged how far away I was from the goal hoop. I felt a sharp pain cut across my back as I smacked into the metal of the hoop and stars burst in front of my eyes.

I don't know what happened next but I do know I fell from my broom, though one hand was still latched on in a death grip, the other wrapped tight around the snitch as I tumbled toward the earth.

The next thing I knew I was laying on my back staring up at the clouds floating through the sky. "Blue." I said. It was the only thing going through my mind at the moment. The sky was a bright blue, clearer than I'd ever seen it. Then there was a rush of pain as the memory of hitting the metal hoop swam back into my mind. A face leaned over me, but my sight was blurred now by pain and probably a few tears as well. "Ow…" I breathed.

I heard someone yell "Becca!" a female voice.

"Hold still." Another voice, male voice I'm sure. I felt myself being picked up from the ground, my feet and left arm dangling to the side. Whoever it was mounted a broom and pushed off from the ground, I wrapped my right arm around his neck instinctively to keep from falling and leaned into his chest.

I woke next in the hospital wing. I know it was the hospital wing because I'd been there often enough in my time at Hogwarts. I'm not a klutz or accident prone, just not choosy enough about the chances I take. I remembered the pain I'd felt when I was last awake; it was gone now, as was the feeling in my toes and fingers, the work of Madame Pomfry's strongest pain potion.

I tried to sit up but was hindered by a weight on either sides of my blanket. There was one down by my feet as well. I lifted my head and peered around. A pair of feet were using my bed as a foot stool at the end. I followed the feet and they led to Jill leaning back in a chair, sounds asleep. Next to her Lily and James had pushed two chairs end to end against each other and were using them like a bed, legs folded up and arms hanging off the arm rests. James's head lolled back and he let out a loud snore. Next was Bindi, her head resting on the edge of my bed, pinning down my blanket on my left side. Remus was beside her, leaning back in his chair, also asleep. He was holding Bindi's hand in his own. To the right at the foot of my bed was an empty chair; next to it was an occupied one. Sirius sat there, fast asleep. He was using my bed as a pillow as Bindi had, his arms folded underneath his head. He had a large bruise on his cheek and a small cut on his jaw.

I tried to sit up again, sliding from under my covers so that I wouldn't disturb their sleep. From the looks of it they had had a worse night than I. My attempt to sit up failed again; this time because not only were my blankets pinned on both sides, my arm was trapped under Sirius's head as well. The little bugger had used _[ime[/i_ as a pillow as well as himself and my bed!

I froze when Sirius stirred. He shifted, snuggling his head further into his arms, sighed, then slept again. I rolled my eyes and tried to settled back and sleep again as well. My attempts were not in vain.

When I opened my eyes again it was fairly lighter in the room. I looked down as Sirius stirred. He opened his eyes and sat up yawning silently and rolling his head about on his neck. He looked around, confused, I think, at his surroundings. His eyes stopped on me, then went wide as a smile played at the corners of his mouth. I felt a pressure on my hand and realized that he was holding it in his. That was why my arm was trapped earlier. He wasn't using me as a pillow, he was holding my hand.

I fought the urge to giggle at him and smiled instead. "Morning Sirius."

"Good morning," he smiled back "How do you feel?" we both talked in low whispers to keep from waking the others, so he leaned forward for me to hear him better.

"My head hurts… as does the rest of me actually. I feel bruised all over, but I'll be fine. I've had worse." I shrugged it off.

"Are you sure? You fell a good 35 feet."

"35 feet? And I lived?" I'd heard of people who died from falling less than 10 feet, falling 35 feet and living seemed impossible to me.

"Apparently you did; [i_apparently_[/i you're hard to get rid of." Sirius smirked, and somehow I got the feeling that he wasn't just talking about my fall from my broom.

"I hate to interrupt this touching moment, but I am anyways." Jill was awake and sitting up. She gave me a wink. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Fairly well, though I _[iam[/i_ a little confused on what exactly happened." I faced her now, ignoring Sirius, his strange subtexts, and the hand he still held.

"Well, you caught the snitch of course, and even managed to dodge me, but then you smacked into the hoop with your back. You held onto your broom for a bit, which made you sort of float down instead of just plummeting to the earth. Then you let go of the broom and just dropped."

"That must have been when I blacked out the first time." I commented.

"Yeah, then you fell about 35 feet and hit the ground flat on your back. I was too shocked to do anything really, but Sirius here was off and flying to you the instant you fell. He would have caught you too if he had been a little closer. As it was he managed to get underneath you as you fell and slowed you down a bit. He didn't get the opportunity to really grab onto you. He nearly rammed into the ground trying to land still going full speed."

"My knight in shining armor then." I smirked and turned to joke about it with him. But he wasn't in a joking mood.

Sirius sat, gripping my hand tightly, his bead bowed looking at the floor. "I though you were dead." He said quietly. So quietly, in fact, that Jill couldn't hear him.

"What?" she asked. "Speak up, Sirius, it's not like they need to sleep much more anyways."

"You fell and fell, I tried to catch you but I didn't get there in time, and then you hit the ground and I thought… You didn't move when you hit the ground, not even a little. I thought you were dead." His voice cracked a little on the word 'dead'.

I studied him for a moment, cocking my head to one side. He's really upset, I thought, he's really taking this hard. But I'm fine, he shouldn't be this worked up when I'm fine.

"Anyways, after that Sirius scooped you up and flew you to the hospital wing. By the time we ran up here Madame Pomfrey had checked you over and given you medicine and such and was scolding Sirius for not waiting for a stretcher and carrying you up properly. She kept saying that while it was gallant and all of him to get you here as quickly as possible, there is still a proper use for a window that doesn't involve the delivery of an injured personage." Jill rolled her eyes. "Apparently you had 3 cracked ribs, a dislocated vertebra, a minor concussion, and jammed finger among various other forms of bruising. She gave you a few potions and such and did her little bit of magic and now you're all healed up, or you should be for the most part at least."

"Yeah, I'm fine. A bit sore and stiff and I've got the head ache from hell, but other wise I'm fine." I smiled at her. "You know what I could do with? Some food. Why don't you round up the sleeping beauties here and go get some breakfast? Then you can bring me up some proper food when you come back; Merlin knows Madame Pomfrey will try and make me eat chicken broth for a week with her nasty little concoctions. I'm going to sleep for a bit more, all this falling and healing and such wears a girl out." I winked at her and laid back.

"Alright." Jill nodded. Then she started shaking everyone awake. She told them I was fine and that I wanted them to fetch me some food and eat themselves while I slept a bit longer. She managed to hustle them all out into the hall with minimal fuss or argument.

All of them except one.

When they had left I opened my eyes again and looked down at Sirius, who had laid his head back down and fallen asleep within seconds. _[iWhat[/i_ am I going to do with you Mr. Black, I thought, what indeed? You confuse me all the more every day.

I sighed, then laid back and slept.

Madame Pomfrey made me stay in bed the rest of the day, which was fine with me. When I got up to go to the restroom the short 5 step walk felt like a 20 mile hike up-hill in ankle deep mud against a strong wind. My entire body felt like it had been pummeled repeatedly by a professional boxer.

Sirius sat with me all day and refused to let go of my hand. I think he was still trying to keep me from falling in some weird way. He hadn't been able to get to me in time to keep me from plummeting to the ground before, so now he held on to me with a tight grip like I would start to fall again at a moments notice and this time he would be prepared.

It was awkward at first, and slightly irritating, to have Sirius hanging onto my hand like he was glued there, but I got used to it after the first couple of hours. The one and only time I pried my hand from his grip a sad puppy dog look coupled with enough worry to crush an elephant came over his face and I shoved my hand back into his.

My friends spent the entire day with me, leaving occasionally for food or books to finish homework with. Will and Win stopped in to see how I was doing, as did just about everyone in the school I had ever talked to. Chris came by and sat with us for a bit and we had a laugh over the ending in a book we had both recently read. When he left it was with a dramatic flourish; he stood and held his hand out to me like he wanted to shake hands, but instead he pulled my hand to his lips, gave me a bow, and exited with a "Good day Milady." I rolled my eyes at him and laughed as he left the Hospital Wing, turning to see if Sirius found Chris's antics funny as well. He was glaring intently at Chris's back. Later he told me he was trying to set Chris's hair on fire with his mind.

I managed to kick everyone out of the Hospital Wing and back to their dorms Sunday night, all except for Sirius. He slept, yet again, clinging to my hand and using my bed side as a pillow.

The next morning Bindi and Remus came in early while Sirius was still asleep looking the worse for wear. They checked in on me, and then left before any of the others arrived, Remus claiming a sick relative, Bindi saying she had a funeral for a distant cousin to go to. It was only after everyone else had arrived that I remembered that tonight was the full moon.

Lily, James, and Jill managed to pry Sirius off of my hand and drag him to the dorms to shower and change clothes, then go to his morning classes. I managed to convince Madame Pomfry that I was completely healed by noon and joined them for lunch and afternoon classes.

The next week went by in a blur. People kept coming up to me and congratulating me on a spectacular save or asking if I was alright which left me blushing red like a tomato. I'm not good at taking compliments, I always get all flustered and tongue tied and don't know what to say.

For his part, Sirius didn't try to take up his vigil as my official hand holder anymore, but he did watch me like a hawk. He tried to play it off as a joke whenever possible, saying that if he didn't watch out for me I'd be "tripping out a window sill" or something equally improbable. I tried to joke it off as well, following his lead. Anytime someone asked me why Sirius was staring at me I'd tell them he was challenging me to a staring contest or trying to irritate me or make me nervous.

And in truth he was making me nervous, but not simply because he was staring at me. What made me nervous was that no matter how much he tried to act normally around me, joke around the way he used to, he couldn't.

There was no more witty banter; he let me win without a fight. The stupid nick names I gave him didn't even faze him anymore, he just shrugged them off. If I insulted him he'd just smile and change the topic. There was no more exhausted collapsing into his lap at breakfast, every time I touched him in the littlest way he'd jump and back away. By the end of the week I had given up trying to even carry on a conversation with him.

That weekend was Valentines weekend and the dreaded Date-for-the-Day Auction was that Saturday. I was extremely nervous and only the thought that one of my friends would buy me early on in the bidding was reassuring. The fact that I had friends at all made me smile every day.

My lack thereof in friends wasn't the only thing that had changed either. I now participated in class, received praise from many of the teachers for my essays, which were apparently extremely well written and informative, and was no longer a door matt for the other students in the school. People whom I had watched silently for years now greeted me in the halls with smiles and waves, and many of them knew my name at least. Most of this I credit to the fact that the particular friends I had acquired were some of the most popular people in the entire school, but I still like to think that at least a small part of it was my own doing by coming out of my shell and forcing people to recognize my existence.

"Do I really have to? I mean, honestly? Do I _[ihave[/i_ to do this?" I whined to Lily.

"Of course you do." Jill replied for her, straightening her hair in a mirror back stage.

"You'll be fine. James and I are going to announce everyone in groups of three and auction you separately. There are twelve of you so we're doing four groups of three. You'll walk onto the stage and go stand in a line to the side, and then when we say your name you'll step forward and stand on the platform bit. We'll give a brief description of things you like to do and such, then start the bidding at 20 sickles for each of you."

"Sounds a bit overpriced to me."

"The point is to raise money and that way there won't be huge long bidding wars over you all. We listed the rules of the afternoon by the entrance and we're going to go over them before the biding starts and again after the biding ends. Plus we set up a carnival type thing for everyone to enjoy to give the people who bid on you all an idea of what to do on your date."

I sighed in resignation. "Fine. When does this all start?" I asked as the noise in the Great Hall on the other side of the large curtain that separated the back stage from the main portion of the room grew louder.

"Oh, right about now." Lily winked at me and pulled James away from a crack in the curtain where he was talking to Sirius and Remus and pulled him towards the stage. I rolled my eyes and finished the final touches of my make up and straightened my clothes.

"You'll be fine dear. You'll be on stage with Jill and me the entire time." Bindi smiled at me reassuringly.

"I don't like stages." I said.

"We know, you've only pointed it out about a hundred times so far this morning." Jill rolled her eyes.

"Just breathe and ignore Jill. She's nervous too, she just handles it differently."

"That's because she's a weirdo." I joked.

"If I'm a weirdo then you're just plain odd."

"Thank you."

"Time to go!" Bindi said, pulling us over to the steps that led onto the stage. Jill was first in line. She walked onto the stage when they called her name strutting her stuff in high heels, a knee length jean skirt, and blouse with a jean jacket over top. Lily had refused to let her, Bindi, or I wear our usual comfortable clothing or robes. Bindi came next in her light jeans, flats, and red short sleeve button down top with the first two buttons un-done. She walked calmly onto the stage in the wake of Jill's comedic strut and model act. Now it was my turn. Lily called my name and I walked out as gracefully as I could, head held high, trying not to stomp across the stage or shuffle my feet. I was wearing a black corseted top with a black jean jacket, a black jean mini-skirt and high heeled black leather boots that came over my knees. I had borrowed the boots from Bindi and the top from Jill, since apparently my clothes weren't quite up to par for the event.

"Alright! We'll start with Jill here," Lily gave a quick description of Jill's hobbies and such then handed it over to James who started the bidding. I was so nervous I picked a spot behind the crowd and stared at it until I heard my name called. Lily gave my description, talking about how I liked t read and write and was interested in art and how I played quidditch and was sarcastic, quick witted, and dangerous in a duel. Listening to her I wondered who she could possibly be talking about. I wasn't anywhere near as cool as she was making me sound.

"And now we'll start the bidding!" James called to the crowd. It started out slow. Chris took the first bid as I had made him promise to do, then someone in the back called out 21 sickles. Chris countered him with 22, another person over to the side by the curtains called 23. They continued on like this until finally the guy in the back yelled out "20 Galleons!" Everyone stopped then started murmuring. The highest the bids had gone so far was 10 galleons for Jill, and even then they had built their way up to it. This guy in the back had just yelled it out after the bidding had gone to 3 galleons. "Going once! Going Twice! SOLD to the guy in the back! Come to the side to pay and claim your date." James finished up.

"Next we have three bright Ravenclaws," Lily continued the auction while Bindi, Jill and I walked off the stage and three more girls came on.

"See? Now that wasn't so bad was it?" Jill asked as we walked over to some empty folding chairs to wait for the biding to end.

"No, I guess not. Who bought you two?" I asked.

"Remus bought Bindi and some guy in Hufflepuff bought me. He's on their quidditch team I think, Jacob or Jason or something like that is his name."

"So Remus bought you huh Bindi?" I winked at her so that Jill couldn't see.

She blushed "Yeah we had it planned out so that he would buy me. I didn't want to have to fend off some strange guy the entire time. I'm surprised that you didn't have Sirius buy you Jill."

"Well, he and I are currently off again. Plus I decided to share the wealth; everyone should get a chance to date the amazingness that is me."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Did anyone see who bought me? I couldn't see them all the way in the back."

"Dunno, but apparently they really want your company." Jill wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"Stop teasing her Jill, that's my job. Did you notice Chris kept bidding for you as well?"

"Well I asked him to start the bidding for me, I didn't want to get up there and then have no one bid for me; that would be embarrassing."

"Yeah but he did more than start the bidding, he kept bidding for you." Jill pointed out.

"Yeah, so?" What were they getting at?

"You can be so incredibly clueless, you know that?" Jill rolled her eyes.

"She's pointing out yet another instance where it is made obvious that Chris likes you as more than a friend." Bindi explained.

"Oh, not that again!" I grumbled.

"Well it's true!" Jill exclaimed.

"Ever think he was just trying to be a good friend and keep me from having to walk around all day with a stranger, like Remus did for Bindi." Bindi and I both knew that that wasn't really the reason Remus bought Bindi at the Auction, but Jill didn't know that, so the example worked for her none the less.

"You know what—" Jill was interrupted as someone called her name at the edge of the curtain.

"Later Jilly." I said, giving her a wink. "Have fun with Ja-what's-his-name!"

"Ha ha, very funny." She said, walking over to the edge of the curtain and disappearing with a tall Hufflepuff guy with shaggy blonde hair and a kind smile.

"2 galleons says she's dating him by Monday." Bindi said.

"I'd take that bet, but I'd lose. He's just her type." I chuckled a little. "Loverboy is here to pick up his prize." I pointed to the edge of the curtain where Remus was now handing his 5 galleons and 15 sickles over to the bouncer type guy standing there. Sirius was standing next to him talking about Merlin knows what.

Bindi rolled her eyes and smirked "If Sirius thinks he's coming on this date with Remus and I, he's got another thing coming." She mumbled walking over to the curtain edge. I followed her, wanting to tease Remus a bit as well.

"Here's the loverboy!" I declared when we reached them.

"Stop that Becca," Bindi scolded me as Remus blushed.

"What? I can't tease you two a little?" I rolled my eyes and looked to Sirius, who normally would be right on top of a situation like this with a little teasing of his own, but he said nothing, just smirked at me, and winked at Remus.

"I hope you don't think you're coming along on this date with Remus and me either." Bindi said to Sirius "We already planned this out. We're going to go on few rides then sit in a nice quiet place and read. If you come along you'll just make a ton of noise and ruin the peace and quiet."

"Aw, but you know you love me! You know you really actually want me to come with you guys!" Sirius protested.

"Yeah, sure, I want you to come like I want to get bitten by a Basilisk." Bindi rolled her eyes.

"Well, it's just too bad for you that I've already got plans for the day." Sirius smirked again.

"Really?" Bindi asked "Did you buy someone at the auction? Who?"

"Come on Bindi, we've got to go find the ticket booth and I need some cookies. I didn't get breakfast." Remus started dragging Bindi away in the direction of the food tables.

"But I want to know who he bought!" she protested, but walked away with him anyways.

"Who _[idid[/i_ you buy anyways?" I asked as he pulled a small leather bag full of coins out of his pocket and handed it to the big scary bouncer dude. He shrugged and smirked at me. He was doing too much smirking for my liking.

The bouncer dude counted all of the coins then said "20 galleons on the nose. Have fun kids." My head whipped around to look at the bouncer guy in shock. He smiled a toothy grin. He was laughing at me!

"You bought _[ime[/i_?" I asked incredulously.

"Well yeah, I couldn't let that idiot Samuels get you and Chris was running out of money." He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"How do you know he was running out?"

"He told me this morning that he only had 6 galleons to his name at the moment. He was worried that someone else would buy you, someone who's not on such good terms with you as he and I are."

"And so you two made an agreement that if he ran out of coin you'd buy me instead?"

"No. I told him good luck then bid on you myself and drove the price up until I ran out of patience for the whole bidding process." He still had that stupid smirk on his face. He was entirely too pleased with himself as far as I was concerned, and I would have told him so if I weren't still trying to puzzle out a few things. Like why he had bid on me when he hadn't said more than three words to me since Sunday. "Was there anything you wanted to do at the Carnival or do I have free reign of the plans?" he asked holding his arm out to me.

"Erm, the bidder gets complete control over the date excluding certain activities that aren't exactly appropriate for a school sanctioned event." I replied automatically. I put my hand on his arm and we walked out of the Great Hall and onto the grounds where the Carnival had been set up.

Lily and James had managed to get a hold of a bunch of muggle rides and, with the help of a few of the Professors, the rides had been magicked to work at the wave of a wand. Warming spells had been set up so that the area of the grounds designated for the Carnival was kept a comfortable temperature. Outside the charms it was already a warm spring day, odd this early in the year, but pleasant none the less.

"Well if there isn't anything in particular you want to do today, then I have a few ideas." Sirius said, already leading me down the hill towards the Lake.

"Um, okay, whatever." I grumbled. He'd planned this all out the sneaky little mutt!

"Good." He smiled at me. "So how have you been?"

"You're in all my classes, Skippy, how do you think I've been?"

He shrugged and gave me a smile.

"Oh, real articulate, you are." I rolled my eyes. "Where are we going anyways?" we had just stepped outside of the Carnival area and the air was cool enough to make me shiver slightly. I was forced to slow our pace as we continued down hill towards the Lake because of the high heels on my boots.

"To the Lake." He said simply.

I sighed in frustration and let him lead me to the edge of the Lake. We then walked around the edge until we came to the forested portions. "We're not allowed in the forest." I protested, but walked in with him anyways. He led me a few feet into the forest to a part of the bank that had a big willow hanging out over the Lake. Sitting under the willow you could see a large expanse of the lake, the grounds, and the castle, but anyone looking at us would only see the long leafy branches of the tree blowing softly in the wind.

Under the tree a blanket was spread on the ground. On it sat a large wicker basket. "How very quaint." I said dryly, dropping my hand from his arm.

"I thought so." he sat down on the blanket and started unpacking the food. "Are you hungry? Remus and I both missed breakfast this morning. We had to make a quick run to Hogsmeade and make a withdrawal at the local Gringots branch so we could buy our two favorite ladies."

Was he flirting with me? "Since when am I one of your 'favorite ladies'?" I raised an eyebrow "For that matter, since when am I one of your 'ladies' at all?" he shrugged again. Merlin he is being so irritating! "The way I see it, all we ever do is nit pick at one another. I make a sarcastic comment, you attempt a rebuttal, I slap you around with some more sarcasm, you manage to say something a little witty, then I say something unexpected and random, call you a silly name, and skip off before you can say anything else to me."

"Have you ever seen me argue with one of my girlfriends?" he asked. Where was he going with this?

"No…" I said hesitantly.

"Have you ever seen me stay with one for them for more than a week?"

"No, but—"

"That's because they bore me. None of them act like they have a brain around me except Jill, and while she's great and all we'll never be more than really good friends."

"Yes, and you make out with all of your good friends. Why just the other day I saw you snogging James in the hall and said 'that's fairly normal'." I rolled my eyes.

"Jill and I… are too alike in some ways I suppose. The snogging tends to come from a mutual attraction, but really that's all it is. She's a pretty girl and she understands where I come from in a lot of ways, but we're too good of friends for it to go anywhere past the occasional snog." He shrugged like it was normal to have an on hand make-out buddy then pulled his eyes from the Lake to look at me. "She and I aren't 'seeing' each other at the moment. We called that off right after Christmas break. I've got my eyes on someone else at the moment."

I mentally twitched. I really wanted to say 'yeah, me' because he [i_was_[/i looking at me, but then that would imply something a little too… awkward for me at the moment. Instead I broke his gaze and looked at the Lake. "Who might that be?" well, we were going with the serious conversation thing, why the hell shouldn't I ask?

Sirius didn't say anything, but I felt his eyes boring a hole in my head. I turned to glare at him for staring at me, but the odd look he was giving me threw me off my scolding. Instead I asked "So, what'd you bring to eat?" He smirked at me then opened a couple of the containers.

Again with that bloody smirk! Like he's laughing at me, or he's privy to some inside joke that I don't know about! It's so irritating!

Sirius had packed us a lunch of turkey sandwiches, chips, and butterbeer. There were other containers in the picnic basket that Sirius said were for dinner if we ended up staying out by the Lake long enough.

"I don't really know that there's much to do out here. When I used to go to the lake with my muggle friends we'd always be out on the water in boats and stuff. It was always warmer, so we'd swim and stuff. The only thing I can think to do right now other than eat is take a nap." I said.

"I have a few other ideas, but you might not like them." He was looking down putting away empty containers, but I could tell he was smirking again. He doesn't usually smirk, he smiles cockily. James is the one who smirks all the time.

"Oh really? Like what?" I asked. I was baiting him on purpose, just looking for a reason to argue. At least if we were arguing, the situation wouldn't be as awkward.

"We could play cards." Sirius pulled a deck of muggle playing cards from the basket and waved them in the air a bit.

"Dodged that bullet didn't you?"

"I'm good at dodging bullets when I try. I'm far too fond of arguing to do so very often." He pulled the cards from the deck and started dealing them out. "I only know one game with these things though. I hope you like playing poker."

I shrugged and picked up my cards. "I'm not very good at the game, but I know how to play."

We played 3 rounds of poker before getting into a debate over Professional Quidditch teams. That somehow led to discussion about what Profession we were going into once out of Hogwarts; Sirius wanted to be an Auror like I did, but had gotten an offer from a Professional quidditch team as well. He was also considering starting his own band of all things.

"Can you even play an instrument?" I asked when he mentioned this.

"No, but I could learn."

"Yeah, right, and I'm sure you'll be great at it." My voice leaked sarcasm.

"Hey! What if I'm this great musician and no one ever knows it because I never even tried to play?"

"Right." I snorted in laughter "Ladies and gentleman, the great undiscovered musical talent, Sirius Black."

"I resent your sarcasm."

"You should, it was aimed at you in a derogatory form."

"You confuse me."

"Good, that's the point of the big five syllable words. Not that's any easier to confuse you with those than it is to confuse you with three syllable words."

"I wasn't talking about the big words, but we'll go with that."

"Then what were you talking about?"

"You confuse me in general. Just when I think I've figured you out, you go and say something random or do something completely unexpected and throw me off again."

"[i_I[/i_ confuse [i_you[/i_? You're the one who started acting oddly this week. You never talk to me anymore, you're always smiling vaguely or smirking at me like I'm a big joke, I tried to hand you your quill yesterday when you dropped it and you took it from me like I was diseased taking every precaution to make sure you didn't accidentally touch me[i_what[/i_ is the deal with you? You've been acting all freaked out like a psychotic Chihuahua since the quidditch finals!" I had jumped to my feet in aggravation during my little rant, and now stood over him, arms crossed, scowling.

Sirius's brow knit with anger. He wanted to argue, to yell right back at me, but something was keeping him from doing so. He opened his mouth angrily, and then closed it with a sigh of frustration. He jumped to his feet as well and paced back and forth. "I don't know, okay? I can't help acting like a— a— what was that thing? A Chiwawu?"

"Chihuahua, it's a small dog that gets nervous and yaps a lot. They're really annoying. Muggles have these big purses they put them in and carry them around in. You'll be walking down the street and this little dog will stick it's big pointy eared head out of the purse and start barking at you. It's all YIPYIPYIPYIPYIP!" I did a little imitation of them popping their heads out of the bags and yipping.

Sirius didn't know how to respond to my Chihuahua imitation. He looked at me like I was a deranged mental patient, shook his head and fought to keep from laughing. A fight he lost, by the by.

"What? You think my Chihuahua impersonation is funny? Just wait till you see me drunk, my inebriated Chihuahua impersonation is even better. Mainly because I add an eye twitch, a stumbling walk, and a higher pitched yip." Sirius laughed even harder as I attempted to fake a drunken Chihuahua imitation. "I should go into politics; I could be a situation diffuser. I mean really, we were at one another's throats, and now you're laughing like a hyena while I do impressions of small drunken dogs." I couldn't bear it any longer, and I started laughing as well. Sirius's laugh started to resemble that of a barking dog, which I found even more amusing and started laughing so hard that I ended up leaning on his shoulder to keep from falling to the ground.

Sirius managed to gather himself after a time. When I finally managed to stop laughing and straightened, Sirius was looking at the hand I had braced on his shoulder to keep from falling down. He stared at the hand for a time, and then reached up to brush it away. At least that's what I thought he was going to do since he had been avoiding my touch all week. I glared at him as he reached up, refusing to move it myself. His hand hovered for a moment and I thought [iDo it you wuss, I dare you, shrink back from my touch like you've been doing all week you pansy.[/i

His moment of hesitation ended, but instead of brushing my hand away as I had expected, he picked it up lightly. His eyes traced their way from my hand, up my arm, to my face and suddenly he was closer than before. He had pulled me to him with that hand and placed his other on my waist. Then he was leaning towards me and suddenly it occurred to me that he was trying to kiss me. I blinked in surprise and quickly stepped away, yanking my hand from his grip. He gave me a puzzled look, and why shouldn't he? Look at the kind of girls that hang around him at school; excluding the one's that are actually his friends, everyone of them is at his beck and call just waiting for the chance to snog him senseless.

Well, it was about time he was set straight. "You know, just because you're the hottest guy in school, on the Quidditch team, and we happen to get along does [i_not_[/i mean that I'm going to let you kiss me just like that." I snapped my fingers on the last word for emphasis.

"What?" Now he was really confused.

"I'm not one of those floozies you're so used too. I don't hang on your every word waiting for a gleam of recognition from you. Now, if you actually like me and want to date me, you have to earn it, just like you would with any self respecting girl who [i_isn't_[/i a slut with nothing better to do but throw herself at a guy." I crossed my arms and glared at him, daring him to argue back. I was ready and waiting to shut him down.

"How?" I was a little shocked that he [i_hadn't[/i_ argued back, so I didn't really catch on to what he was asking.

"How what?" I blinked.

"How do I earn the right to date a girl?" he seemed earnest about it too, which puzzled me slightly.

I wasn't puzzled enough, however, to lose my biting sarcasm. "May I suggest starting by [i_not_[/i dating everything in sight with nice legs and a pretty face?" The seriousness was back in his expression as he considered this. "Work on that one, then get back to me in a week or two and we'll work on phase two: appropriate pick up lines and first date behavior." I started walking away from the picnic blanket and towards the castle. I was retreating back to the solitude of my windowsill and a good book, where the odds of Sirius trying to kiss me again were at an extreme minimum.

"What's phase three?" he asked.

"Phase three: Why you're not the center of the universe." I replied.

"And four?"

"Phase four: Why sex isn't intimacy." I called over my shoulder. I took his silence to mean that I had stunned him properly by mentioning sex, and practically power walked out of the forest and up the hill into the castle. When I reached the Gryffindor Tower I changed into more comfortable clothing, a worn in pair of jeans, soft cotton spaghetti string tank top, and a cotton jacket, then settled in my cozy little windowsill with my new book and attempted to read.

I say I attempted to read, because no matter how much I tried to concentrate, no matter how good of a book it was and how much I wanted to find out what happened next, I couldn't keep my mind from drifting to one thing. Why on earth would Sirius want to kiss [i_me[/i_ to being with?


End file.
